American Assholes in Mongolia

I didn’t go to Mongolia to be the American asshole.

I don’t think anyone goes abroad with the intention, right from the outset, to be a rude foreigner. However, if you’re like me, you are downright terrified of being perceived as such. You tiptoe around museums and slink into restaurants wondering how obvious it is that you don’t belong and whether you’re already doing something wrong. (Spoiler: If you’re white in Mongolia, it’s already clear you don’t belong.) You internally shudder every time you try to pronounce your tour guide’s name, imagining how many internal sighs she must be heaving. With your driver’s name, you don’t even make the attempt; you just smile, nod, and say thank-you, aka “bye-shla” (which you are 83% sure has a guttural, back-of-the-throat sound somewhere in there) a lot. You wonder if Mongolians assign bonus points for trying to pronounce their language, or if they’re more like the French and would prefer you to pry off their fingernails.

Needless to say, I spend a lot of my time abroad trying not to be the American asshole. Mongolia was no exception. And that’s why, when one of my merry band of friends started traipsing up the side of a very steep, grassy hill in Hustai National Park — on her way toward some very far-away wild horses that apparently had once been almost extinct — I had a few reservations. We’d arrived in a car, driven along one of the many, many dirt roads of the Mongolian countryside by the driver whose name I could not pronounce. We’d passed a few other cars and vans inside the park, but I’d seen none of their passengers go more than a few feet away from the vehicles. Clearly no one was here to police us; the entrance to the park was little more than a welcome banner and a very weathered-looking list of rules in spotty English. Still, was this something we were allowed to do?

So, I asked our tour guide — the Mongolian native whom we’d paid to tell us if we were about to do something stupid, dangerous, or just plain rude.

“No no, go ahead,” she said, waving at the hill. “It’s okay.”

With that reassurance, I high-tailed it up the hill after my friend. Soon all five of us tourists — four Americans and a Czech — were on the hill, closer but still craning our necks and squinting through camera lenses to see the horses, who, I will say, appeared entirely unbothered. One friend had brought a fancy camera with an even fancier telephoto lens, which he set up on a tripod and allowed us to look through. The only downside to this adventure (or so I thought at the time) took place when we traipsed back down the hill and I fell into a muddy creek. But that’s not the point of this story.

Our driver was the one who had spotted the horses, so it was no surprise that the next time he stopped our car, he had spotted more wildlife, this time animals called red deer. Like before, we all got out of the car and started up the hill (a new one) to get close enough to see the deer through our friend’s fancy camera lens. The deer were harder to spot than the horses, so after a few sub-par sightings, I decided to turn and head back to the cars. The others stayed a little longer, so I was ahead of them when I reached the bottom of the hill. There, I found another van parked behind our car and several older white people standing in front of it, staring up the hill. As I got closer, I heard a very distinct “assholes” enunciated, albeit with a European accent, from one of the men. Suddenly I was sure they were looking at me.

No sooner had I reached our car, when one of the women from their party stepped in front of me.

“Excuse me,” she said, frowning. “I must say something.”

They had been talking about us. My heart dropped.

“I come here every year, and I am just appalled. You all walk up there, bother the animals. It ruins things for everyone. Now the animals will not come closer. We will not see them maybe next year. It is ruined for everyone because you do what you like. This is very rude. It makes me very angry.”

She was glaring at me. Her voice was raised. Oh my god, she was mad at me. Me, the American. I was furthering the stereotype. She thought we were all assholes! I wanted to crawl under the car. But I didn’t.

“It makes me so angry. You all have made me angry,” the woman repeated, louder this time. 

“Understood.” That was the best I could do, as far as responses go. I felt ashamed, and also mad about feeling ashamed, and I thought I might start crying. Thankfully, with one last glare, she turned back to her comrades, who all had expressions on their face that were a cross between sneers, frowns, and suppressed laughter. They’d be talking about this the rest of the night, most likely. Those asshole Americans.

After taking a while to compose myself, I finally shared the encounter on our ride out of the park. The reactions were what I’d expected: indignation, exasperation, a little defensiveness. Everyone was sure we had been in the right and that those bossy Europeans were out of line. Upon reflection, that’s what I thought, too. But isn’t that what Americans, or perhaps even humans, always think? How would we know if we’d been in the wrong? We weren’t children trying to “get away with” something; we wouldn’t have done anything we thought was actively harmful. Getting yelled at by a stranger didn’t change our minds one bit.

This encounter clearly sticks with me. Maybe it’s because of the aforementioned terror of being perceived as the American asshole. Maybe it’s because I have an extremely thin skin and can’t handle getting yelled at by anyone, even a complete stranger. But maybe it’s because I am never quite sure how money shifts power dynamics. We were paying a lot to be there. Did our tour guide tell us what she thought we wanted to hear? Rationally, I doubt it; I think she’d have made us follow the rules if such rules existed. But emotionally? Emotionally I’m still afraid we did the wrong thing, simply because someone told me so in a loud, angry voice. I don’t know what that says about me, but it doesn’t seem great.

Bitch on a Plane

So E___ and I are on our way back from Iceland (more on that later). The two of us are sitting way back in the very last row of the plane, minding our own business--i.e. watching bad movies on those little headrest screens--when suddenly a stewardess appears beside us, bends down, and fumbles around in the seat pocket of the empty seat between us. She retrieves a flat brownish-looking paper and, with a nod of apology and a few quick words, retreats. Both of us have our headphones in, so we look questioningly at one another, neither having heard. I shrug and then go back to watching The Wolverine. E___ roots around in her seat pocket until she identifies the same brown item. Turning to me, she mouths, "Barf bag."

Not more than a few moments later, two blond stewardesses come lurching down the aisle, supporting a thin young man who is literally covered in gray Icelandair blankets. They settle him in the seat across from us, at which point I get a better view and determine that he must be the one they needed the extra barf bag for. He looks pale, and his mouth is drawn in that stubborn way that says, "God I feel awful, but I will not be sick again." I quickly offer up a little prayer that if he is sick, he gets all of the barf into its designated bag.

Mystery solved, I go back to my movie, content to mind my own business . . . until another stewardess arrives with an oxygen tank in tow. Now I can't help but openly stare as they all attempt to maneuver the clearly heavy canister so that the tubes connecting it to a scrunched-up cellophane mask will reach his face. I've never seen anyone this sick on public transportation before. What is wrong with him? Are they just being over-cautious because he vomited a lot?

I'm in the middle of trying-not-to-stare-but-staring-anyway when an older woman--probably 70 or so--comes up the aisle and taps one of the stewardesses on her shoulder.

"Excuse me."

At this point I take my earphones out.

"Excuse me, I need your attention." The woman persists until the stewardess stops helping the sick man and turns around.

"Yes? Do you need something?"

"Yes, I do. I need some water."

The stewardess turns, presumably to fetch a bottle of water from the back of the plane, but the woman isn't finished. She pushes right past the other two stewardesses attempting to oxygenate the sick man and encroaches on the first stewardess, who had only made it as far as the restrooms.

"I watched you walk up and down that aisle a number of times, and never once did you ask me if I needed anything."

I can't quite make out what the stewardess replies, but it probably should have been something like, "I was running up and down the aisle trying to make sure this gentleman here doesn't die. My apologies for not heeding the ESP signals you were sending."

Regardless of what the stewardess's response was, the elderly woman persists with her complaint. "No, you should have stopped and asked if anyone needed anything. It's your job to make sure everyone is comfortable on this flight, and not once was I asked whether I needed anything."

If I were a different person, I might have leaned over and said, "Look, lady, that guy right next to you is basically dying, so back down," or, "Have you ever heard of a call button?" or, "Next time bring your own damn bottle of water." But of course, I don't. Instead, I re-insert my earphones and lean back to watch Wolverine get filled with adamantium. Good thing we don't all have rage-induced claws.

Eek! 3-Day Catch-up

I was terribly lax over this past weekend, so here are Days 16, 17, and 18.

A casual birthday potluck! Met some new game-loving friends of friends, ate some delicious food (compliments of A___, who is a great cook and hostess), and spent a much more social Sunday night than usual.

Train travel. It's so much roomier and more pleasant than air or bus travel, and certainly more relaxing than driving. Why did we silly Americans ever do away with 90% of our railroads?

My haircut. Even though it's grown out a little since I got it cut, it is still at a great length: makes a small ponytail, dries fairly quickly, and doesn't take more than 30 minutes to blow-dry and straighten.

The chance to see M___ and L___ get married! It was a beautiful day for a beautiful wedding between two beautiful friends. And also . . .

An excuse to dress up. Because let's face it: after high school prom, how many dress-up events are there?

A boyfriend who likes to match my outfit. I would never require this, but it does look nice, so it's especially gratifying that he does this on his own!

R___'s mom. At the risk of sounding like a suck-up, I have to say that she's generous and kind, and this past weekend gladly answered my question about wedding gifts in (lieu of my parents, who were MIA). It's so nice to have another adult I can depend upon . . . plus she makes really scrumptious cookies.

The fact that my iPod hasn't died yet. I am pretty sure its life has exceeded 2 years now, which is more than I had hoped for, so hopefully my gratefulness won't jinx it.

Netflix! Whoever came up with the idea of a subscription movie/tv service is a genius (and probably being rewarded accordingly). It's hard to believe that I went so many years without television . . . until I try to actually watch cable TV. Those are the moments when gratitude for Netflix overwhelms me.

Notes from Snow Denver: a Poem

Pools that are short (by three whole yards)

Breath that is shallow, like sucking in shards

Crisp and clean and thin, dry air

Perfectly straight and frizz-free hair

Freezing degrees, an absence of trees

And a delicious meal at the oh-so-Ritzy

Elway's Steakhouse

Saturday in DC: A Public Transit Adventure

Anyone who knows me knows what a proponent I am of public transportation. I will gladly tell anyone who asks how thankful I am not to own a car. In the next 5-10 years I don't expect to live anywhere that requires me to own a car, and if I can get away with being car-free for longer than that, I will. My reasons for a carless life are numerous, but one of my strongest arguments in favor of an extensive and user-friendly public transit system is that it enables independence and flexibility in new and unfamiliar places. This point was proven once again on my most recent trip to Washington DC.

I arrived in DC on a Thursday in order to set up for the Society for Neuroscience's 41st annual conference. Exhibits at the conference were not scheduled to open until Sunday, and since we were finished setting up by Saturday afternoon, I was left with the rest of the day free to do as I pleased. After making plans with various friends, here was my route around the city:

First, I walked back to my hotel from the conference center.

Walk 1.1 miles, ~21 minutes

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Then, I walked from my hotel to Union Station, where I met my friend K___ for coffee and a stroll around the city.

Walk 0.5 miles to Union Station, ~10 minutes; ~3 miles around/across the city in ~2 hours

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Next, K___ put me on a bus that took me up through Georgetown, to a 50m pool I had scouted out in Tenleytown. There I swam laps in a facility nicer than almost any pool I have ever seen, and which also happens to be free to DC residents. My jealous was palpable.

Bus ride ~40min

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After I finished swimming, I took the bus back to Foggy Bottom. There, I got on the Orange line and took the metro out to Arlington, VA in order to have dinner with my college friends B___ and G___.

Bus ride, ~40 min in the opposite direction + metro ride, ~22 minutes

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Finally, after ample dinner, drinks and discussion, I took the metro back to my hotel.

Metro ride orange line to Red line to Union Station + walk to hotel, ~40min

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All in all, it was a busy but successful day. Now, imagine if I had had a car! I would have had to deal with the stress of traffic, navigating unfamiliar streets, paying for parking. Instead, I spent less than $10, got some exercise on foot, took a nice bus "tour" of Georgetown, and enjoyed reading my book on the subway. Why can't every city in America be like this?

What Canada Does Right

As an American, I will admit that, on a number of occasions, I too have said something to the effect of, “It’s just Canada—geez, it’s practically the US.” This is likely the result of my having little-to-no knowledge of what Canada has to offer (apart from maple syrup and hockey, of course). Geographically, it is identical to the majority of New England, and it borrows even its languages from other countries (namely the US and France). I’ve been to Niagra Falls and I’ve camped in Toronto, and I can honestly say that these places are no different from any number of spots in the United States.

However, I am currently visiting Montreal on a work-related trip, and I must say—while this city may resemble other cities I have seen, it does a tremendous job of melding together some of the best of them. To put it into one little phrase, Montreal is pretty much a French Portland.

“French Portland?” you say. “How could crunchy, laid-back Portland ever be French?” Well, first let me tell you the ways in which Montreal resembles Portland: first, it is probably amongst the most bike-friendly cities I have ever seen. One night I went on a 7-mile run, and I was able to stay on bike paths—true bike paths, which were in no way obstructed by cars—throughout the entire run. Also, as I explored the city, I ran across such an assortment of dyed, sheared, shaved, and teased hair, I had to wonder if there wasn’t a punk rock convention happening nearby (which, I might add, would have been a hilarious compliment to the Human Genetics convention I was attending).

Now, how could such a city be French? Let’s begin with the fact that everyone here speaks French. The street signs are written in French, the grocery store products are labeled in French . . . yes there is a considerable amount of English, too, but it is all written as “subtitles,” below the French. Every shop owner, hotel concierge, taxi driver, and restaurant server has addressed me first in French. Montreal’s dominant language is clearly French.

Add to this, the design of the city: the buildings are all old, ornate stone structures; the roads are primarily cobblestone; the shops are tiny and boutique-like; the restaurants and cafes are small and intimate. It’s a wonder visitors can remember they’re not actually in France!

All of this being said, it’s a shame Montreal isn’t in the US—I’d consider moving here! (At least for a bit.) I love the bicycle-friendly atmosphere, and the city is right on a river, which is wonderful. The language would be somewhat of a barrier, but it would also be good incentive to expand my linguistic repertoire. Instead I’ll just have to check out San Diego . . . they speak Spanish there, right?

The November Trip, Part 2: Los Angeles

After the conference in San Diego ended, I took a train up to Los Angeles, to visit my friend A___. I got off at Union Station (there seems to be one of these in every city), took the metro red line to North Hollywood, and waited for D___, A___’s boyfriend to get off of work so he could come pick me up.

Prior to arriving in LA, I had two preconceived ideas: that I would like the city, and that I would dislike D___. I assumed that I would like LA because what is there not to like about California? It’s 60-70 degrees and sunny all year long; near the ocean; and one of the entertainment Meccas of America. However, I failed to remember one significant fact that was repeated to me again and again: it is impossible to get around without a car.

Having developed a love of public transportation (and a corresponding aversion to driving) ever since studying abroad, I end up feeling limited by—and therefore resentful of—any city that requires a car to get around. I must have somehow believed that LA wasn’t really one of these cities. That is, until I arrived. LA not only requires a car, but it also makes it impossible to escape cars even when you are not driving one. Virtually every residential street seems to be one or two blocks away from a major road (i.e. a road that spans four lanes or more and is full with bumper-to-bumper traffic—which essentially describes every road in LA).

Before this trip, I thought I knew what traffic was. In Pittsburgh, traffic was taking 45 minutes to travel a distance that should have been covered in 15. Then I moved to New York City, where traffic was streets full of taxis all swerving and rear-ending one another to get around buses, through red lights, and over bridges. Traffic meant taking two hours to go twenty miles. However, I discovered that I never really knew the definition of traffic until I arrived in LA.

Gridlock is a way of life in LA—headlights shine directly into taillights at every conceivable hour of the day. We sat in traffic when D___ picked me up at 5:30pm, when we went out to dinner at 9pm, when we drove home from seeing Harry Potter at 11:30pm, and again on the way to the airport at 2pm. (There might have been some open road at 5am, but I never woke up early enough to check.) All in all, the inescapable feeling of being on a highway no matter where you are, combined with the frustration of endless traffic give the city a busy, congested feel that is very different from NYC. Instead of confronting countless people, you are confronting countless cars, which feels much more impersonal, but no less stressful. All in all, I wasn’t crazy about LA.

My feelings about LA surprised me, but not nearly as much as my feelings about D___. Prior to meeting him, all I had heard was how untrustworthy and inconsiderate he was. Honestly, if I were the one dating D___, I’d have broken up with him a long time ago. He didn’t manage to improve my opinion when he arrived to pick me up from the metro station, either, since he didn’t offer to help me with any of my luggage. (Not that I couldn’t handle it myself—I had carried it this far, after all—but it seems like something respectful to do for anyone, male or female, familiar or not.)

Once we got into the car, I was anticipating a tense, silent ride. However, D___ turned out to be a perfectly adept conversationalist; we talked about work, living in CA versus NY, sports, and of course, A___. By the time we got to UCLA, I was almost disappointed that our ride was over, because I knew as soon as we picked up A___, the dynamic would change. As I expected, as soon A___ entered the picture, she and I did most of the talking, and D___ just drove. However, this car ride and our subsequent interactions made me reconsider why A___ was still with this guy, and why she started dating him in the first place. Despite the past and future horror stories that would come to be told about D___, this interaction was enough to give him a second chance in my book.

The November Trip, Part 1B: The Frenchman

It began at dinner.

Most of the meals I ate during the Society for Neuroscience conference were in one of two hotel meeting rooms, where we ate the same salad with the same dressing, followed a main course with the same side of oily asparagus, all washed down by the same glass of water or iced tea. Thankfully, this particular dinner was celebrating one journal’s 30th anniversary, and so the venue was a real commercial restaurant where we would (presumably) be served considerably more exciting food.

Tables inside the restaurant were arranged to seat six, so the marketing manager and I sat down together at one table (we usually sat together at these events) and were eventually joined by three other gentlemen. The two gentlemen across from me were Korean and Japanese, respectively, and the man to my left was French. While we made a valiant effort to shout across our appetizers to one another, the Korean man, the Japanese man, and I eventually gave up at attempting to hold a conversation and settled for those sitting closer: for them, this meant the marketing manager; for me, this meant the Frenchman.

Although we had asked that the board members not bring guests, this Frenchman—let’s call him “Alex”—was just that: a guest. He had no official affiliation with the journal, or even with our publishing company. Consequently, instead of being a graying, wrinkled old scientist, Alex turned out to be a 30-something world traveler. He worked as a scientist and had his own lab, but he spent more time travelling to other labs around the world to consult on various scientific projects.

Throughout the dinner, we chatted about our various travelling experiences. I mentioned my study-abroad trip to England and told him of my twenty-four-hour excursion in Paris. He described his work in countries all over the world and told me he would be visiting New York City in early 2011. I enthusiastically told him that he should email me before he comes, and I will offer suggestions for what to see and where to eat. He thanked me graciously, and we finished the meal with further discussion of our jobs and our travels.

After dessert was served and everyone seemed to be starting on their final glass of wine (these scientists could drink!), I pulled my purse from under the table and extracted a business card for Alex. “My email address is on here,” I told him, “So just email me before you come and I’ll send you suggestions and stuff.”

This was when it happened. I don’t know what it was about that business card (it was plain white with simple black lettering, so basically as boring as possible), but his eyes lit up and he clutched it as though someone had just handed him a $100 bill. He thanked me as he stood and inserted it into his jacket pocket, reiterating his excitement to come to New York . . . and then he sat down in his chair and pulled it right up so that our knees were nearly touching. “Perhaps we will see each other when I come,” he added.

That should have been my red flag. I had mentioned having a boyfriend throughout dinner, but always in a broad way in a larger conversation. The marketing manager had been talking about football, and I had mentioned my boyfriend likes the Cowboys. A few of us were discussing Americanized Chinese food, and I had mentioned a restaurant that my boyfriend and I had yet to try, near our apartment, that had several rabbit dishes on the menu. I had not, however, brought R___ up in direct conversation with Alex. So, it was possible that he had missed those other comments. Or, alternatively, perhaps he simply wanted to see a familiar face in a foreign land, and so he now perceived me to be his “New York contact.” I could not fault him for that. If I went to France or Greece or China, I would much prefer to have a native show me the sites, whether friend or acquaintance.

So, as I tend to do, I gave Alex the benefit of the doubt and went with the latter presumption that he was just hoping for a local tour guide for his trip to New York City. We chatted a bit longer, with me inching my chair away little by little, and finally I got up in order to say my goodbyes. After I had shaken a number of strangers’ hands and given my regards to both my boss and the journal’s editor-in-chief, I grabbed my purse and slipped out the door. Even though I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, I felt that it was in my better interest not to say any special good-byes to Alex.

I had made it about halfway down the street when I sensed someone on the sidewalk behind me. Again, I consciously decided that it could be any board member who had left at the same time as me, and since all of the hotels were in approximately the same area, it made sense that we were walking the same direction. This assumption was ruined, however, when the steps behind me quickened and an arm was suddenly thrown over my shoulder.

“Where are you going?”

I shrugged off Alex’s arm and continued my brisk pace. “Back to my hotel.”

“Oh but it is so ear-ly.”

“I’m kind of tired. Still on East Coast time—you know. And I have to get up early for a breakfast tomorrow, so I’m just going back.”

“But you are so young! Come have a drink.”

“No, I really do have to get up early tomorrow.”

He sighed. “I will walk with you back to your hotel, then. Where are you staying?”

It turns out he was staying in the exact same hotel as me, right beside the conference center. I was terrified that he was going to try to walk me all the way to my door, but thankfully we were staying in different towers, so we parted ways at the entrance. Heaving a sigh of relief, I locked my door, turned out the lights, and fell asleep imaging how I would recount this story with maximum hilarity for my friends the following day.

The next morning, I woke up and checked my work email account, just to make sure no one had sent me anything urgent. There, in the sent box, was a message from Alex.

I am still working in my computer and I was thinking of you...It was a very pleasant dinner and I hope that you will have more time to discuss today evening about life, arts and more.

I deliberated on how to respond for the entire half hour it took me to get ready for the editorial board breakfast I was about to attend, and in the end I shut the lid of my computer without writing anything. I did have dinner plans, and going out for a drink after dinner (his second proposition in that email) was not a good idea, because it offered me no “out”—that is, no tactful way to say, “Sorry, gotta go.” I decided that if I saw him during the day (which was unlikely, considering that 40,000 people were attending this conference), I would just tell him that I had not checked my email.

The next morning, I wrote him a reply, apologizing for not seeing his email the day before and suggesting coffee between the end of the conference and the dinner I was scheduled to attend. When I checked my email later that morning, I had not received a reply, but just before noon, Alex showed up at our company booth.

“I leave today,” he told me, “So I am not free for drinks.” We shook hands, and he said that he would hopefully see me in New York.

But that was not the end. Over the next few days, I received two more emails, one of which I thought summarized the experience most appropriately:

I hope everything is fine for you. I don't know yet when I will come back in New York but I hope before next summer... My thoughts flashed back to the last time we met when I tried to chat you up! It was fun but not a real success....

There went my wistful hope that ours had been an innocent interaction. Upon recounting the incident to various friends, I was advised not to reply, and so I have not. I guess this means I’ll have to befriend someone else if I want a native tour guide in Paris, perhaps a Frenchwoman. . . .

The November Trip, Part 1A: Riding the Elevator

As I mentioned in the last post, I struggled with feeling “equal” and "grown up" at the Society for Neuroscience conference.  Part of it was my inexperience compared to both the publishing staff as well as the scientists, but another big part of it was my age--specifically the fact that the majority of the attendees I saw face-to-face were retirement-aged men.  The following is an appropriate illustration of my struggle.

[I am in my hotel, standing in the back corner of the elevator riding up to my room.  There are seven other people in the elevator with me, all of them having just entered on the lobby level.  Buttons 5, 12, 18, 20, and 23 are lit, and the elevator is rising to let people off.]

MAN 1

Awful lot of people in here.

MAN 2

Yeah, well gotta expect that, with forty thousand people, or however many attended this thing.

[Elevator dings.  Two people get off.]

MAN 1

[Looking at me]

You’re all tucked away in that corner back here.

ME

Yeah, I’m getting off last.  Trying to stay out of the way.

[Elevator dings.  Another person gets off.]

MAN 1

[Looking at the elevator button console.]

You 23?

ME

[Nodding.]

Mmmm hmmm.

[Elevator dings.  Doors start to open.  MAN 2 moves to get off, then looks over his shoulder at me.]

MAN 2

That’s funny.  I would have taken you for eighteen.

The November Trip, Part 1: San Diego

For the past two years, I have arranged meetings and events at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual conference for Boss #1. I reserve rooms, choose menus, invite editorial boards, and create reports to be discussed at these meetings, all without ever seeing how the meetings actually operate. This year, after considerable petitioning on my own behalf, I was finally granted permission to attend the conference and experience the fruits of my labor. Thus, I packed a bag, boarded a plane, and set off for San Diego.


Unfortunately, because this was a work trip, I did not get to explore as much of San Diego as I would have liked. I did manage to eat at a few impressive establishments, run along the marina, and take walks around the downtown area, but the majority of my time was spent in the convention center or in a nearby hotel. However, travelling is all about new experiences, and I certainly had some of those.

Boss #1 is an oenophile (i.e. a wine lover and connoisseur) and therefore had me arrange for both red and white wine to be served at every one of his board meetings, with the exception of breakfasts. Consequently, within a forty-eight hour timeframe, I ate four different meals at which wine was served, plus two additional receptions.

Ordinarily I would decline this much alcohol, free or not. I don’t much care for the taste of alcohol, and I definitely don’t care for drinking around strangers. However, sitting around with strangers who are at least two if not three times as old as me and who only know me as “Boss #1’s Assistant,” I felt almost required to drink. I wanted to seem like more of a peer and less of a minion, and partaking of the “adult-like” portion of the meal—the alcohol—seemed one subtle way to do that.

Thus, I embarked on the tricky task of drinking enough to fit in while remaining completely sober. For an inexperienced drinker like me, this was a definite challenge. However, with eight occasions on which to practice (the four board meetings and two receptions I mentioned earlier, plus two dinners out with colleagues), I mastered my tolerance quickly.

Another trial-by-fire learning experience was determining which silverware to use. I am reasonably confident in my basic etiquette skills: put your napkin on your lap; wait until everyone is served to begin eating; don’t sip/slurp/spit your food, etc. However, I am unaccustomed to sitting down at meals where there are two or three forks, a couple of spoons, and a various assortment of cups. While I doubt that anyone was scrutinizing my eating habits, I know that my boss considers himself to be very cultured and refined, so I didn’t want to make him look bad by proxy.

One trick I remembered was to eat “outside in,” but at our very first meeting, the marketing director (whom I knew and therefore stuck to throughout the conference) claimed that the salad fork was the one above the plate. I followed his lead, but at the next meeting paid close attention to which utensils Boss #1 was using for which courses. As you may already know, it turns out I was right: the salad fork is the one farthest to the left. The dessert fork is the one above the plate.

After learning to “drink responsibly” and “eat properly,” I spent the remainder of the conference selling books, hunting for topics for books, and talking to scientists about writing books. Then, I had the pleasure of leaving work behind and reading a book on my two-hour train trip to Los Angeles. . . .

Why Delta is not Alpha

First, they take my facewash. And this wasn’t just any ordinary facewash. It wasn’t your run-of-the-mill bar of 99 cent Dove soap. This was my $8.99 Clean and Clear foaming facial Acne Cleanser. And to make matters worse, they hadn’t said jack to me at JFK. No, I had gotten through security just fine there. Here in Pittsburgh, not only did they scan my backpack twice, they then singled out my duffle bag and completely unpacked it, only to apprehend and detain my dangerous 7 oz. facewash.

Then they delay the flight—not once, but twice. The first delay is fifteen minutes. Fine; I have no problem with a fifteen-minute delay, because I understand that things happen. But then it’s another half-an-hour before the plane even shows up, and as soon as its passengers debark, the crew is hustling us on, telling us we had better hurry if we want to “make it in time.” We had better hurry? We have been sitting in the airport for forty-five minutes!

Thirty minutes later, after sitting motionless on the runway, an announcement came on, rousing me from my Pittsburgh-to-JFK slumber. In this announcement, the flight attendant informed passengers that we must debark, because this plane will not be departing for JFK now until six o’clock. Apparently a crew member had timed out and will need to be replaced before the plane can take off again, and so our flight will now be delayed until 6p.m.

We all file off, with important-looking businessmen already on their phones with their travel agents, everyone waiting for their non-checked, stored-under-the-plane baggage (since Delta now charges $15 per checked bag). Everyone with connecting flights lines up at the counter, and I take my seat. Six o’clock rolls around, and we all get back onto the plane. Twenty minutes later, after a suspicious silence from the engines and no movement from the crew, the captain comes over the loudspeaker and informs us that he has some very unfortunate news. Apparently due to a runway issue at JFK, there is an air traffic delay that will be causing yet another stewardess to time out, and so we will have to once again debark the plane. They have no further information at this time. They are very sorry.

We get off the plane and pick up our luggage again. Now the businessmen are louder and redder as they spit into their cell phones. “Unacceptable” and “ridiculous” are the buzzwords of the day.

No sooner have we deboarded and lined up in front of the counter, when the airport attendant comes over the loudspeaker to apologize for the delay and informs us that a new flight attendant has been located and we will be re-boarding the plane as soon as she is ready. We all stand clustered around the entryway grumbling and wondering how legitimate this claim is for another thirty minutes before getting back on the plane. It is now 7:15 p.m. The plane is finally in the air at 7:35 p.m.—over four hours after it was scheduled to depart.

I am officially irate. My flight coming to Pittsburgh was delayed by more than an hour both in the airport and on the runway. All that, and now a crew member who couldn’t manage her schedule? If anything deserves a letter of complaint, it is certainly this. Delta management, you will be hearing from me.

Strangers on the Bus

The ride was going so well, until he mentioned dumpster diving.

As a rule, I typically avoid talking to people on buses. Short-distance riders, long-distance riders—they (or do I mean we?) are a relatively creepy lot, and I figure I am better off keeping to myself rather than engaging in a potentially awkward conversation with a fur-coat-clad woman carrying three trash bags or a 6’4” black man whose earphones—which are not even in his ears but, rather, dangle limply around his neck—are playing rap music so loud, it’s audible at the front of the bus.

That I keep my distance assumes, of course, that these individuals do not try to strike up a conversation with me. I am not one to be rude, after all; I don’t like to snub people. Therefore, if someone initiates conversation, I will respond. This does not mean I will attempt to further the conversation, but there is no reason to ignore a perfect stranger just because they are collectively a member of bus-riding weirdos. After all, I take the bus. (It fits my budget!)

So because my general rule is to avoid talking to strangers on the bus, I was slightly comforted when, after making a joking comment about the driver’s announcement that our bus would be “running express” and “would only stop for ‘number two,’” the passanger in the seat next to me commented that he had never spoken to a fellow bus seatmate of his own volition before. A kindred spirit, I thought, as he recounted his last bus ride stuck beside a fifty-year-old woman who held him in captive interrogation for the entire five hours. We’ll get along.

And we did. I found out that he went to school in Connecticut—he was in his final semester studying Psychology, although he had tried out English and History before finally settling on Psych. He asked me what I had done while staying in DC and told me all about the various museums he had visited and music performances he had seen. It seemed like a pleasant enough conversation, and I was enjoying it in a detached sort of way (although I did kind of want to finish the novel I had in my bag, since I was in the last few chapters, with only twenty pages to go). However, I figured I had a full five hours to read my last twenty pages. One hour of chatting would simply help to pass the time.

My first clue that something was a bit “off” occurred when Chris (that was his name) asked me what I had done in DC for the second time. When he asked, I assumed he meant to imply the word “else”: “What else have you done during your stay in DC?” However, when I started to quickly rehash what I had already told him, merely for context, he leapt at the information like it was a new avenue of conversation. “Oh the Eastern Market!” he exclaimed. “I love that place! I bought a pound of coffee there.” When I had told him about going to the market earlier, we had had a discussion about how both of us had gone to see the Crepe Man, and he had wanted to know if I had bought anything interesting. He hadn’t mentioned buying coffee, but I suddenly feared that if I mentioned crepes, he would start telling me, “Oh! I had one of those! I love that guy!”

His next slightly odd comment was $25 for a show was “five times too expensive for his budget.” We were talking about things to do in NYC, and he was expounding on the “culture available” and “for so cheap.” “I guess there’s stuff up at my school,” he said, “but it’s always to expensive. Tickets are, like, $25. Five times over my budget limit, that’s for sure.” Okay, I thought, so maybe he’s just a poor college student. Maybe I used to think that $25 was a lot for entertainment back when I was in college, too. I don’t remember. It would probably depend what show.

After showing me a pamphlet from an avant-garde art museum he had visited, which featured disturbing, somewhat creepy art by Louis Bourgeois, he asked if I had ever heard of some sort of soup-kitchen-type organization called “Meals not Bums.” (Or something like that. I’m pretty sure the name used alliteration, but I cannot remember what he called it.) I hadn’t, which surprised him. “They must have a group in Queens,” he kept saying. Apparently this group takes excess food from restaurants and stores and redistributes it to “whoever wants it.” Unsurprisingly, this demographic usually consists of homeless people.

“But you can’t use stuff from places like Panera,” I pointed out. “They’re too worried about getting sued.”

“No no,” he assured me, “we just get our stuff from mom-and-pop places. Buffets, stuff like that.” He paused. “But I’ve definitely taken sandwiches out of the Starbucks dumpster. That stuff is good.”

Now I began to look longingly at the book in my lap. Who the heck was I sitting next to? Why do I innately want to believe people are normal and kind? Of course, he did volunteer for this organization, so he probably was at least kind….

“Life just sucks,” he told me a little while later, after he had elaborated upon his plan to marry the girl he had just visited in DC. They had broken up two years earlier, this girl was about to join the Peace Corps in Africa, and they intended to marry each other in 2012 if neither found another suitable partner. “I can’t get married before I’m 24,” was his reasoning. However, following the “life just sucks” comment, he asked, “Have you ever been arrested?”

I told him no.

“Me neither,” he said. “But I watched my friend get arrested. It sucked.” When I didn’t respond, he continued, “It was so stupid. He was just at this Wal-Mart and tried to return a garden hose off the shelf. A f***ing garden hose! It was, like, twelve dollars.” Chris shakes his head. “So stupid.”

“Why did he try to return a garden hose?” I was a little confused.

Chris looked at me like I was a moron. “Because it was on the receipt.”

“But if he got the hose off the shelf, where’d he get the receipt?”

“He found it on the floor.” Chris suddenly leaned back with a smile of pride. “We made good money this one time; we returned this flower pot. Forty-five dollars! It was so sweet.”

We? This guy not only ate out of dumpsters, he scrounged shopping lots for discarded receipts and stole merchandise! I clutched my bag more tightly between my legs.

“That’s really wrong,” I told him. He shrugged, and I suddenly had a flashback to my favorite movie as a little kid: the cartoon version of Robin Hood, with the fox that plays Robin Hood and bear that plays Little John. Was this nothing more than a small-scale modern-day version of that story? Rob from the rich (corporations), give to the poor (college students)…. But of course, this guy isn’t giving away anything. And he’s really just stealing from everybody. After all, who manufactured that garden hose and threw that clay flower pot? Probably some underpaid child laborer in Taiwan. And now here’s this oh-so-cool hippie-esque college guy thinking he’s entitled to a free ride in life while the rest of America loses their jobs….

I feigned being asleep for the rest of the bus ride. (With my bag clamped between my legs.) So much for finishing my book, but some sacrifices just have to be made for a little peace of mind. Maybe this will teach me not to talk to strangers on the bus.

City loyalty

Pittsburgh is my hometown, and I am proud of that. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to transfer that loyalty, no matter where in the world I live. When the subject of football comes up, I am the first to identify myself as a Steelers fan. I will always have a special pride in things that are uniquely Pittsburgh, from the Original Hot Dog Shop, to the Carnegie Library, to the Point, to all of our awesome bridges.

Still, I think living anywhere for a significant period of time contributes to my sense of identity and, consequently, creates in me a sense of loyalty to the place. I wouldn’t say I developed a sense of loyalty to Rochester “the city,” since I never really explored the community in any in-depth way, but my identity certainly includes the fact that I am an alumni of the University of Rochester. I am very proud of this aspect of my identity, and I will speak enthusiastically with anyone about how great it was to be a member of the swim team, the wonderful open curriculum, and special U of R traditions like Meliora Weekend and Dandelion Day.

Similarly, if anyone asked me about my time studying abroad in England, one of the first things I would say is how grateful I was to have been forced to live off-campus, in the town of Brighton. Initially I was horrified at the prospect of being excluded from “campus life,” since, I had found this so valuable while living at U of R, but the more time I spent in Brighton, the more I fell in love with it. I’m sure that, had I lived in London, I would have grown equally attached to that city, but because I spent my six months in Brighton (when I wasn’t travelling to other parts of Europe, that is), I emphatically asserted afterwards that I was glad to have lived and studied in that town instead of in the big city of London. It gave me a much more relaxing, town-y, “English” experience.

Now I’m in New York City. I don’t think I will ever be able to say I am from New York City, or at least not for the next twenty years or so (I am constantly being called a “tourist” by my NYC friends), but after having lived here for the last nine months or so, I have again developed a sense of rapport with this city.

My first realization of this newfound loyalty occurred when I went to visit a friend in Boston. I had never been to Boston before and was quite eager to explore a new city. Unfortunately, I did not end up seeing much of the city that weekend, as R___ and I mostly went out to eat, walked around Harvard, and hung out at his apartment. However, I did get a general feel for how Boston differed from NYC. The subway system was one major indication. It was so small! Consider this map:

vs this map

Obviously NYC has infinitely more people to cart around, but Boston must be a significantly smaller city, as well, to have so few lines serving such a limited area. And it was tremendously frustrating to have to wait for a train for twenty minutes on a Monday afternoon just to travel one stop!

Another difference that caused me to realize my partiality to NYC was Boston’s lack of resources or, by comparison, NYC’s abundance of resources. On one evening, R___ and I wanted to go buy cookies to eat while we watched football with him and his roommates. Apparently, there was only one possibility within walking distance: a small convenience store located two blocks away. This arrangement alone wasn’t too shocking—if I had wanted cookies at 9p.m., I would have walked to a convenience store near my apartment, too. Even the singularity of our options—one convenience store—I could understand: outside of NYC, it probably wasn’t normal to have three convenience stores within one block of cityscape. What was shocking was the limited number of choices inside this convenience store. The shelves were nearly empty! I am accustomed to shelves bursting with product: fresh fruit spilling out of bins and bright drinks filling coolers jammed along walls. This convenience store looked like it was about to go out of business the next day. We took the last package of Chips Ahoy, grateful that there were even any cookies available, and R___ tested two lighters before finding one that actually worked. As we left, I absently wondered if this was even a 24-hour convenience store or if, had we arrived one hour later, it would have been closed. How unusual, to have cities with bedtimes!

Which brings me to my next trip: Washington D.C. My bus arrived late, putting me into the city at midnight (instead of 10 p.m., when it had originally been scheduled to arrive). My friend K2 met me at the station in order to take me back to her apartment before setting out again to pick up our other friend, K1, from the Reagan Airport. K2 seemed a bit on edge, and when I asked her about her mood, she said she was worried about what time K1’s flight would arrive. Why? Because the DC metro shuts down at a certain time! My mind immediately jumped to how inconvenient my life would become if the NYC metro ever shut down. And to think that I gripe about alternate weekend schedules and limited services after midnight….

To its credit, DC’s metro is incredibly easy to navigate; the next morning, I was able to hop right on and off without any confusion in order to meet my friend Lexi Devourat L’Enfant Plaza (or, as I prefer to call it, Elephant Plaza). Unfortunately, this ease of navigation is also a limitation, as my resident friend K2 tells me that a car is a near necessity to access certain areas of the city, and that one derailed train will disrupt the entire system. Fifty percent of my reason to live in NYC is in order to avoid owning a car! If one derailed train delayed the every other train in the system, NYC companies would have to do away with start times (which may not be nearly such a bad thing)….

Here is the DC metro map, for comparison:

Finally, one last thing must be said about each of these cities’ metro systems or, actually, about their physical structures. Boston’s cars are quaint and homey-looking. They remind me more of old-fashioned train cars than underground subway cars. The cars’ exteriors resemble trolleys, and the train stations are enormous, cave-like places. DC’s cars are a bit more modern, but much more posh, with bright orange, red, or blue cushioned seats. The floors are even carpeted. Additionally, these cars are built to be “handicapped friendly,” which basically means the centers are wide open spaces where there is nowhere to hold on during rush hour. DC stations, however, are extremely similar to Boston’s stations, with high ceilings and smooth gray stone walls. The primary difference in DC is that every station has more escalators than stairways. A city primed for lazy tourists…? NYC’s cars, compared to the subway cars in these other two cities and have gritty uncarpeted floors, are usually dimly lit (unless you are fortunate enough to catch one of the newer ones with the florescent lighting and automated station announcements). They are designed for one purpose: to squeeze in as many people as possible. Moreover, NYC’s subway cars are ten times more advertisement-plastered than either DC’s or Boston’s cars. Although if you want your product to be seen, I guess you have to advertise in the place where most people will see it. The most crowded city in the world’s transportation system is probably prime for that!

So when all is said and done, I cannot help but find myself partial to NYC’s metro system. Ours is the biggest, the most efficient, but also the most complicated. If you can navigate the metro system in NYC, you can navigate the metro anywhere. (Except perhaps in Greece. Any country where you don’t speak the language—that barrier trumps all. Trust me—been there; done that.)

Beauty and Irony in Amsterdam

I have visited many liberal cities, but none that flaunt their acceptance of “alternative lifestyles” as blatantly as Amsterdam. The Red Light District? It’s real. Completely and utterly. I saw women posing nearly-naked in windows, giving passer-byers (male ones) “come hither” signals. Angela informed me how this system works: the women rent out windows for a daily fee. Then, when they get a customer, they invite him in and close the shades. The shades are red: hence, the Red Light District.

Also, regarding marijuana legality? Not only is it legal, but it is extremely prevalent. You cannot walk down a street without encountering at least either one shop selling drug paraphernalia. Most likely, a sex shop will reside next door. Part of me is convinced that these shops are all for the benefit of tourists. After all, even the souvenir shops sell bongs, rizzlers, and dildos. Plus, Amsterdam cannot be any more ridden with smoking sex-fiends than any other city. Well, perhaps more people smoke hash because it is legal, but I did not find evidence of this in my observing the public, and I have a pretty good nose for the stench of weed.

If it hadn’t been for the beautiful canals running throughout the city, the sexuality and bohemian-ness would have been overkill. What was especially unusual about our stay is that we accidentally booked a Christian hostel . . . in Amsterdam, of all places! Talk about ironic. Michelle was very obviously pleased and felt right at home, while Angela balked at the idea of being exposed to more aggressive evangelism (she has had some bad experiences with religious groups). As for me, I was just annoyed that a hostel I considered extra-responsible for being generous and accommodating to its guests forced us to pay for using its sheets. Bedsheet charges are one of the things Angela and I keep a lookout for when we are booking hostels, so I am almost certain Shelter Jordan (the place where we stayed in Amsterdam) did not advertise this additional fee on its website. Furthermore, we were informed that sheets “were not an option,” so even if we had happened to bring our own, we would still have had to pay the charge. What sort of “charitable Christians” trick poor student travelers into paying extra for their stay? Perhaps the same ones who feel justified in starting Holy Wars….

A self-observation I made in Vienna:

Being around Angela and Michelle makes me realize how much I actually don’t like children. The two of them love children. Angela works at a teaching center for very young children at home in Singapore, and both girls go absolutely ga-ga at the sight of basically any child under the age of four. Even crying children qualify. At St. Steven’s Green in Dublin, Angela and Michelle could have stayed sitting on that park bench for hours just watching the little kids run around on the grass. In Prague, Michelle actually followed one little boy holding a chocolate ice cream cone in order to take his picture until his grandmother grabbed his hand and protectively pulled him away.

I, on the other hand, barely give children a passing glance. Babysitting always bored and exhausted me—representing exercises in patience and creativity that I always felt were poorly rewarded for the effort required—and those interactions only involved five hours with a set of kids. I cannot even imagine having a set of my own to look after 24/7. I would go insane!

I think my future husband (assuming I get married) will have a big influence on my decision whether or not to have kids. I have a lot of ideas and opinions about parenting, but I don’t think I actually like kids all that much. Having the ideas and enjoying putting them into practice are two completely disparate things. I have been told I would make a good parent, and perhaps I would, but would I enjoy being a parent. I suppose there is no way to know until you are one.

Prague and Vienna: Money, Music, and a Massive Surprise

Prague is cheap

That is what I was told before I left for the June Trip: Prague is cheap. Of the four countries we visited, it was the only one that had its own currency, and it was weak currency, at that. For instance, our “decent” Prague meal (since we always reserved one “nice” meal at which to sample traditional—and usually pricier—international cuisine) cost me about 300 Czech Crowns. Because approximately 30 Crowns equals 1 Euro and 1 Euro equals 1.5 US Dollars, my meal cost me about $15. This is pretty average for a proper meal in the US, but in Europe, it is definitely less expensive than the usual. (When spending GBP or Euros, I almost always spend over the equivalent of $30 at any given restaurant.) However, believe it or not, my bus ticket to Vienna—an international bus ticket at that, since Vienna is in Austria—actually cost me less than that meal (270 CzK). However, since converting monetary units was so complicated, it was too much effort to determine a “good deal,” so I generally shied away from buying things. I took 2,000 CzK with me and did not manage to spend it all.

Unfortunately, I spent all of my Euros. Our stay in Vienna proved to be more expensive than I had anticipated, because we attended a performance of the Vienna Boys’ Choir. Michelle was enthusiastic about the prospect of seeing this choir perform, but Angela was absolutely ecstatic. A singer herself, she demanded that we take the best seats available in the allegedly “best acoustic theatre in all of Europe.” During the performance, she swooned over their clear, bell-like voices, particularly that of the soprano soloist.

As for me, I appreciated attending the performance, particularly because it will no doubt be a once-in-this-lifetime experience (and because I can now brag to all of my singer friends that I saw the Vienna Boys’ Choir). Nonetheless, I feel like all of the expertise I have gained from my mother and sister has turned me into a choir snob. I couldn’t help but silently ridicule the boys’ technique (or lack thereof): they didn’t open their mouths when they sang; they didn’t stand up straight; most of them didn’t even look like they wanted to be there, especially the older ones (“older” being a relative term, of course, when the average singer appeared to be about eight years old). They sounded lovely, no doubt about it, but I wasn’t particularly pleased with the size of the theatre (it was very small), nor did I like the arrangement onstage. The boys stood on risers on either side of a piano, which their conductor played as accompaniment during some of the pieces. Surely, if this choir was as prestigious as its reputation, the venue could afford to hire an accompanist? For 58 Euros, I suppose I expected something more impressive, something less like a recital.

The most interesting part of the Vienna leg of our trip was our hostel stay. We stayed in Panda Hostel, which turned out to be someone’s apartment converted into lodgings for travelers. There were only two bedrooms, housing a total of maybe twenty people, at most, and this many only because the high ceilings permitted the installation of triple bunk beds. The kitchen was fully equipped with cutlery and dishes (which is unusual for a hostel) but lacked—of all things—a stovetop. Consequently, all cooking had to be done with the microwave. Then, there was one bathroom with a toilet and sink, one bathroom with a bathtub and sink, a table in the entrance hallway to serve as a “dining room,” and that was it.

While we failed to personally acquaint ourselves with any travelers in either Dublin or Prague, Michelle, Angela, and I got to know several of our hostel mates in Vienna. The first were a group of boys traveling together from New York. We went through the preliminaries with the chattier two (there were five total): where are you from, where have you been, where do you study, etc. It was during these introductions that I mentioned I studied at Rochester. One boy, Victor, stopped dead in his tracks. “You’re not serious.” Of course I was, and he proceeded to tell me that he, too, attended the University of Rochester. Talk about a small world! He was only entering his second year there, so it is logical that we had never encountered one another. Nevertheless, I wonder if I will see him on campus when I return in the fall, since I will now recognize his face.

I can just imagine the encounter: I approach him, maybe in Wilson Commons or Rush Rhees, greeting him by name. He looks puzzled. “Who are you?” “Vienna, remember? We stayed in the same hostel….” And then there would be little else to say. Maybe I just won’t recognize him.

Rain in London

Today was supposed to be my good-duty day. I went to London specifically to buy Amy (my sister) an England sweatshirt (because she was did not decide until after she left what she wanted for her “souvenier”). Apparently, all of our nice weather was used up in April, because the temperature here has returned to the 50s, and it has been raining cats and dogs for the past several weeks. Thus, of course, it was raining today as I set off to catch my National Express bus to London.

Obviously I took an umbrella with me, but this did not prevent everything I was carrying in my bag/purse from getting wet. This wouldn’t have been so bad, had I not borrowed and brought along someone else’s novel (Naked by David Sedaris, borrowed from Angela) to read. The entire perimeter of the book got completely wet and is not drying in that ever-wrinkly fashion of soggy paper.

I intended to go to Camden market to buy the sweatshirt, because I knew I’d get a good price and there would be a good selection of the kind of zip-up hoodies Amy wanted there. Unfortunately, I happened to walk around Buckingham Palace at the exact time they were changing the guard. This means that the place was swamped with tourists: Germans scrambling for the best view, Chinese with their camcorders, parents herding children every which ways, and police people (women, too) in their neon yellow vests, trying to direct it all from horseback. Thus delayed, I tried to circle around this mob and be on my way. As you may predict, this only succeeded in getting me completely lost. I had arrived in London at 11 a.m. By 1 p.m., I had only reached Oxford Circus (approximately halfway between the Victoria coach station where I had arrived and my destination).

Rather than risk getting further lost and perhaps missing my bus back to Brighton (scheduled to leave Victoria at 5 p.m.), I decided to look around the shops in Oxford Circus for the sweatshirt. I found a few promising items at souvenier shops, and after much contemplation, returned to one I had encountered earlier in my search to buy the sweatshirt. Not more than two minutes after I had made my purchase—which, by the way, cost me five pounds more than my parents had given me to buy the souvenier—I wandered into another shop and found the exact same sweatshirt for nearly fifteen pounds less. That’s thirty dollars!

To further my bad luck, the spokes on my umbrella proceeded to snap one after the other until it was literally impossible to even open the thing. At that point in time, it was not raining very hard, so I chucked the useless instrument in a nearby rubbish bin and continued browsing the jam-packed stores. I managed to successfully navigate my way back to Victoria coach station and arrived back in Brighton at seven-odd in the evening. Unfortunately, by this time it was absolutely pouring, and—because I am trying to conserve my last few pounds here for food and other necessities—I was forced to walk the mile back from Poole Valley Station to Holland House in the rain.

By this time in the evening, I was starving, so I hurried into the kitchen to make myself some dinner. What greeted me, but puddles on the floor from a leaky refrigerator and a sink full of grimy water, soggy bits of people’s leftover dinner, and unwashed dishes. Needless to say, I worked around this to prepare my curry and even received some leftover rice from the ever-generous Fluf.

The final straw happened approximately twenty minutes ago. I decided to go to Tesco Express (a grocery mart located conveniently around the corner from our residence) to get myself some much-deserved dessert. Because it was raining, I was ultra-aware of how slippery the marble steps would be leading down from our front door. Tenatively, I placed one flip-flopped foot (because my sneakers were inside my room, hopefully dripping dry) on the step, and what happened? Out went my foot, and down the steps I flew, to land heavily on the right-hand side of my lower back. What made this fall worse was that because I was only going around the corner, I was holding my keys and my wallet in my hands. Both proceeded to fly from my grasp, and although I managed to find my wallet fairly quickly, my keys were nowhere to be seen.

Luckily, after much searching in the rain and darkness, I managed to recover the keys. (They were sitting by a gutter in a pile of cigarette ashes.) Tesco Express didn’t have the kind of caramel-filled Cadbury’s chocolate I like best, so I returned to Holland House empty-handed and tremendously sore.

What a day.

What Shocked Me in Greece

Athens may be a city that has been deteriorating for over two thousand years, but it is modern in most of the ways that count here and now in the modern world. For instance, it’s the advertisements like I saw there that give people self-esteem problems these days. Activists in America gets in an uproar about how unrealistically skinny models are and how sexually charged advertisements can be. Obviously, none of these soapbox standers have ever been to Athens. By my judgment, Europe has completely different standards for its models, by which women must have visible cheekbones and hipbones, men must have a six-pack at minimum, and both must be either Greek-style brown or albino-style fair skinned to qualify for the job. Concerning the sex, allow me to present an example of one of the provocative advertisements I saw.

Now, the first phenomenon I found surprising in Greece, it may be loosely related to this intensely sexual advertising trend. Kim and Angela (my two traveling companions for this trip) and I stayed in Hotel Lozanni, accommodations that resembled a hostel more than a hotel, with its bunkbeds, shared bathrooms, and cold showers. Kim had picked this hotel/hostel without really researching its precise location within Athens, so when we arrived, we found it several long streets away from the city center, but located within a very city-like area. Dragging my suitcase after my two companions—they were carrying backpacks, which did not require maneuvering over curbs and around puddles—I noticed that some of the women in Athens sure liked to dress outlandishly. One of the women I passed had fantastically sparkly eye makeup on and a nearly neon black-and-pink-striped dress with black stiletto boots. Another was wearing a skin-tight lycra mini-dress in a bright shade of lime green, which contrasted with her obnoxiously blue eyeshadow, and of course, stilettos. In my opinion, she also certainly didn’t need to be wearing so much black eyeliner and mascara, because she was a platinum blond.

That first night we arrived, I didn’t pay much attention to these women, as we were trying to find our bearings in a new city. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but stare the next day when saw those exact same girls posing on the corner a block away from our hotel—at 5pm in the evening. Broad daylight does wonders for recognizing hookers. When we emerged at 7pm to find a place for dinner, they had multiplied. Angela and I counted fifteen on our walk to and from the restaurant, and after careful study over the next few days, concluded that if we donned some heels and makeup and hiked up our skirt (or shorts, in my case), we could easily be mistake for having joined the ranks. Seriously.

During the day, as Kim, Angela, and I perused the various Greek shops, I began to notice another astonishing trend: Athens has more mink coat stores than I had ever seen anywhere in my entire life. How did I know they were mink coat stores, you ask, when I couldn’t read Greek? Well, for one, why would so many stores strictly sell tons of random expensive-looking and similar-looking fur coats in a city as hot as Athens? But what about animal rights? you protest. Doesn’t anyone care about those poor creatures being butchered just so some hoity-toity lady can walk around in furry pelts? My response is this: why would so many stores go to such lengths to sell fakes? And expensive fakes, at that. I wouldn’t spend over 700 Euros for a fake fur coat, would you?

The third shock of the trip came inside our hotel. It could have been the fact that our TV remote control didn’t work and that I was the only one tall enough to push the power button on it (which means we did not watch almost any TV)—but that wouldn’t be much of a surprise, because could you have seen what sort of a place this was, you would have been surprised we had a television set at all much less a remote control, even if it didn’t work. The third shock could have been the fact that we had an air conditioner, but this would mean that it worked, which would not be entirely true. It, too had, a remote control needed to operate properly. However, this remote was not included with the room—as the hotel only had one to control all of the rooms in the place—so we had to go down to the front desk, get the remote, have the attendant turn on our specific room’s a/c, go upstairs, adjust it with the remote, return the remote to the front desk, and go back upstairs to wait until our room reached a reasonable temperature. And all of this with our room on the 3rd floor and no lift. Cheers.

So the actual third shock of the trip was one of the desk attendants (receptionists? check-in people? What do you call them when they are all men?). I would never have considered his blue eyes “shocking”—merely surprising, to find on a Greek guy—except for the fuss Angela made over them. We were barely out of the lobby when she started swooning over the banister. From then on, he was “desk guy,” and she spent the ten minutes before and after we saw him gushing over how good-looking he was and how she wanted a picture of him. He was somewhat handsome, in a striking way caused by the contrast of his pale blue eyes and tan complexion. Therefore, in an effort to strike up conversation, I managed to make a fool out of myself three times: once when trying to figure out whether to call him a receptionist or desk person or whatever, once when giving him a half bottle of wine that Kim and Angela failed to finish, and once when asking his name (for Angela’s sake, of course). He told me his name was Caesar. At first, I thought he was joking. When I made some sort of tentative response, he said, “Yes, call me Julius Caesar.” Now I took him at his word, and replied, “Really? So your first name is Julius?” He looked a bit amused and corrected me. “No no, just Caesar.” What a sucker I am.

To conclude, if you need a “quickie,” that one coat that will make you feel part of upper class society, or the experience of knowing someone who was named after a salad (or perhaps his mother was thinking of the historic ruler, you never know), the streets of Athens are at your service. Just be wary of the intense sun and perverted old men in parks.

Dancing in London

There is something about dance that is more captivating than any other art form. When I was in London with my family, we encountered two very different forms of dance, and both equally entranced me. Looking down from the very top of St. Paul’s Cathedral, there was a rectangle of green grass far below. On that area of lawn, a group of boys were gathered, performing acrobatic tricks and various hip-hop maneuvers. From the cultural education I received at Woodland Hills High School (particularly thanks to an individual named Chase), I immediately recognized these individuals as break-dancers who appeared to be either warming up or practicing. I am incredibly fascinated with break-dancing and all it entails: how people can control their bodies in such precise ways so as to “pop,” ripple, flex, bounce, spin, balance and flip, all in rhythm to contemporary music. The moves require strength, coordination, and flexibility way beyond my abilities, and perhaps this is why I admire these dancers so much. However, this does not explain why I am so enthralled by watching them—after all, I cannot hit a home run or putt a golf ball into the hole from ten meters away, but I wouldn’t be nearly so fascinated by watching these feats. Quickness cannot explain it, because I don’t care for NASCAR racing, nor can technical knowledge of dancing, because I actually know very little about the true art of break-dancing. Yet, I could have stood at the top of St. Paul’s for at least another hour watching those boys, rather than walked back down and tried to interest myself in more concrete arches and stained glass Jesus portraits.

The same goes for ballet. On our tour of the Royal Opera House, we had the opportunity to see a ballet practice in session in one of the practice rooms. I barely heard what our guide was saying about the cross-beams composing the floor in order to absorb impact as I concentrated on the dancers inside. They were all so thin, but so strong. The thinnest one was the obvious “prima ballerina,” who was the palest of the three women. She was blond and pale-skinned and wore the most traditional outfit which included a black wrap dance skirt and leotard with leggings. She also wore an obvious amount of makeup, but despite the amount of work the dancers were obviously putting into the practice, not a bit of sweat appeared through her mask of makeup. Indeed, none of the dancers seemed to sweat at all. It seemed almost supernatural.

The prima ballerina’s partner seemed the most unconventional of the four men in the room. He wore a light purple bandana folded several times and wrapped around his forehead to hold back his nearly-shoulder-length hair. Then, he wore blue sweatpants that were torn to reveal gray-blue tights underneath and a worn, thin green T-shirt.

The most graceful of all the dancers in the room appeared to be the male understudy, who remained in the far back left-hand corner of the room throughout the practice. He wore all black and mimicked the movements of one of the secondary male dancers throughout the practice, but with gentler movements and more of a fluidness and ease of motion. Whenever that dancer had to lift his partner, the understudy would stop, shuffle his feet a bit in mimicry, and watch intently. However, he was never given the opportunity to step in and practice with a partner. I was disappointed at this, because I would have liked to see if lifting a woman’s weight would have compromised his grace. He impressed me so much; I have never seen a man dance more softly than a woman, but his movements were more graceful than even those of the prima ballerina.

I would have liked to stay and watched that ballet practice all day long. Yet, this is not because I ever wanted to be a ballerina. On the contrary, I was terrible at ballet when I was a child—completely inflexible, not particularly graceful, and too tremendously tall. I suppose dancing in general is just more interesting to watch than other art forms because it is performance art that gratifies many senses, transforms as we observe it, and is almost interpersonal in its manner of communication. Unlike music or visual art, dance usually allows us to see the dancers’ faces and to interpret intentions and emotions in their body language. Meanwhile, we can be impressed by the physical feats they are performing, rather than something that has already been performed (visual art) or something of which we need more specified knowledge to fully appreciate (music).

Maybe that is why some people are so self-conscious about dancing in public. They are afraid to reveal themselves so openly. They are afraid to be seen.