orogenesis and its discontents

The air is thin and the sun is strong.  When it starts setting at 5pm, the air gets chilly. There's a small blanket pressing down on my brain and I'm strangely congested.  I'm in Cusco, a town of 300,000 Peruvians, 11,000 feet above sea level in the Central Andes mountain range.


Easy flight from Toronto to Lima, with a free seat next to me. Met two Peruvian-Canadians on the plane, a professional skateboarder from Vancouver and a friendly woman from Montreal. I met the former while boarding, during which he offered a treatise on the women of Colombia and promptly to take me around Lima. The latter sat in my row and seemed not speak english, so we ended up in French. She warned me to be careful in Lima, which she said was very dangerous. 


Watched Limitless (of limited cinematic value) and the new Gulliver's Travels with Jack Black (of no cinematic value at all). We landed at 12:35am, and the passengers applauded, which reminded me of landing in Tel Aviv on my first adult flight on El Al. 


Lima is not pretty at night. From what I saw the next morning on the way back to the airport, it's not pretty in the morning, either. Lots of police, some of whom appear to be paramilitary. I checked into my hotel, slept for six hours, ran a mile in the gym, and eat a breakfast that includes miso soup and gyoza.


The LAN flight to Cusco is full, but I get an emergency exit row seat with another free one beside me. They serve a cute paper snack box with an enormous chocolate, a slice of cake, and some strange crackers. I try Inka Cola, which is the color of mountain dew and tastes like bubble gum.


My brother (Y) meets me at the airport. I'm lucky to have him as a traveling partner for the week, particularly since he speaks spanish and is spending the summer in Peru. He's arrived the day before, after spending a week in Lima. It's good to see him. 

The South American Way

Toronto Pearson Airport, maple leaf lounge. Hanging out in the lounge for a three hour layover on the way to Peru.

The lounge is packed but still pleasant. Canadian television is focused on grilling the Canucks coach and the death of someone who is referred to as Canada's greatest national hero. Never heard of the guy.

A seven hour flight to Lima awaits me, followed by a midnight arrival in one of the least popular capitols in the developing world.

Five Years Later

I was told that the five-year college reunion is the good one: few people are married with children and there's high turnout. Everyone's in the mood to party, whatever that means. By the ten-year, the children have arrived and fewer people show up.


With this in mind, I went to my five-year college reunion at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

Took a packed 9:15pm US Airways flight out of DCA to BDL. I'd hoped to split a cab to Middletown, but no dice at 10:30pm. 


Arrived on campus sometime after 11pm. Dropping off my bags in the dorm (where reunion alums can stay), ran into an excited group of folks from my year. Spent the rest of the night enthusiastically running into old friends while an alumnus band played perfectly chosen covers. A wonderful, friendly energy prevailed. In the words of one of my classmates "everyone just needed a break from their lives."

Saturday's main event for the class of 2006 was a reception and dinner in a private tent. More reconnecting, albeit with less enthusiasm. Lots of people are teaching, with grad school as the runner-up. Five years seemed to have a positive effect, interactions were noticeably less awkward, people considerably more secure, and a social generosity seemed to prevails. A larger all-class tent party followed.   


Wesleyan does a nice job of combining reunion and commencement into one weekend, with Sunday for the latter. As the designated speaker, Paul Farmer did a nice job of mixing humor with personal anecdotes from his work in Haiti. One got the sense that Farmer is cut from the same cloth as Wesleyan graduates: irreverent, critical, globally oriented, and focused on improving the world. 

After the ceremony, got Indian food at Udupi Bhavan with L, S ('06 alums) and S' father + grandfather (also alums).   By the time L and I got back to campus at 3ish, it was totally deserted. 


A lifeless and empty college campus is a sad place to wander, particularly after you've spent a weekend wandering its walkways with hundreds of friends and acquaintances. I felt enormous relief when the taxi pulled up to take us to the airport.


Our driver was wearing a tee-shirt from Nicholson, the dorm where L and I spent our first year of college. The 2002-2003 version, our year at Nicholson. 

Sugarloaf For Passover

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Easter Sunday, middle of Passover. Time for a hike on Sugarloaf Mountain, in Maryland.

The hike began uneventfully, a quiet walk up a small mountain on a hot April afternoon. Nice rocks, trees, the usual.

After stopping for lunch a mile or so in, it began to rain gently. We continued.

Within minutes, we were sitting in the middle of full-blown thunderstorm, with flashes of nearby lightning.

We squatted under/near large rocks to avoid lightning strikes and tried to wait out the storm. The downpour accelerated.

We eventually decided to keep hiking in the rain, after being completely soaked. The rain stopped after a few minutes on the trail.

We hiked back to the car in the cool quiet, appreciating the clarity that follows a spring rainstorm in the forest. 

New York and Back Again

Thursday night Acela. Friday wandering Soho and the East Village in the cold rain. Tokyo 7 has moved, and I found a completed building in the former parking lot next to my old apartment on 9th and C. New espresso machine at the 9th Street Espresso. The sandwich from Barnyard didn't taste as crisp.

Found a cool sock shop in Soho where they gave me a glass of scotch for free. Saw Win-Win at the Angelika.

Drinks at the Pegu Club, modeled after a colonial watering hole of the same name in British Burma. Dinner at a French restaurant on Houston. Stopped a by a friend's newly-purchased apartment in a coop, a first for friends in New York.

Saturday was sunny, warmer, and devoted to Brooklyn. Dinner on Smith Street. 

Notes On the Middle West/Upper South

The 1:15pm Delta flight from DCA->CVG left at 2:50pm. My first Delta flight of 2011 and my first with Silver Medallion status. Delta offered an alternative flight through the web, with one segment in First Class. Turned out to be a mechanical problem, which is never reassuring.

CVG  is entirely different as a final destination, rather than as a transfer-point.  I wonder how many cities get more transfer-only visitors (who never actually visit a city) than actual visitors. I've passed through but never visited Dallas, Detroit, and Chicago.

We get into Cincinatti around 5pm. The city is grey, industrial, and very mid-western. My colleague remarks that it looks just like downtown Minneapolis. Do mid-western cities look the same?

There is a large Teacher's union demonstration in Fountain square when we arrive. The speeches boom into my hotel room on the thirteenth floor, the cheers and chanting of the crowd. They seem energized, something about pensions.   Is there is something particularly nasty about the attack on public sector workers in the mid-west?  One envisions 1950's and '60's Cincinnati: prosperous, orderly, friendly, a well-respected public sector. The height of American Power.  Expectations and changing economics, oy.

We eat at a wonderful new French restaurant that I find on yelp. The food is excellent.  I'm impressed.

***

It's raining in Kentucky. We pass fields, cows, horses, and strip-malls. We labor to and successfully find a Starbucks, the great American constant.

After the meeting we drive back to CVG, eat some chili (apparently Cincinatti is famous for Chili), and buy Kentucky-themed souvenirs. Our flight to BWI is delayed and I talk Delta into putting us on the flight to DCA.  I narrowly miss getting upgraded.

Monkey Business

5:40am. Awake.
7:15am US Airways Shuttle: DCA to LGA.
8:55am Starbucks, 29th and Park Avenue. Dancing crazy woman. Jazz. Delicious Energy.
-Work-
1:19pm hail taxi slightly south of Canal Street.
~1:47pm Sprinting from the security line, I hear the my name on final call for US Airways Shuttle back to DC. I am the last passenger to board.
8:30pm: Tales of life in Saudi Arabia from an ex-consultant over Sushi.
11:25pm: I finish reading The CEO and the Monk: One Company's Journey to Profit and Purpose
11:40pm: Roommate opens package to find stuffed monkey in a ziplock bag with attached thanksgiving card.  

Playing and Watching At War

Went ice skating on Tuesday night in the sculpture garden, paintballing on Saturday somewhere in Virginia. My first time paintballing, intense and wonderfully separate the rest of my existence.  Pumping adrenaline, the fear of being shot by a small orange pellet, a simulation of warfare. Exhilarating moments of victory and teamwork.

Have been watching a Battlestar Galactica, another simulation of warfare. It's a a remarkably satisfying and complex show that plays with morality, humanity, Need to buy a DVD player, and have heard this site is good for LCD TV stands. 


All is Quiet on most other fronts. 

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.