05.19.07
Posted in India, Narratives
at 04:32
The heat and the smell hit me first. It was 21:00 and probably about eighty degrees farenheit. There is a smell here. The closest I can come to describing it is a combination of dirt and mould and blood. But it’s not a bad smell, and it’s not really blood but something like it. One of my favourite smells in the world is that of rain, which I would describe as ozone and mould. The smell here is not one of my favourite smells, but it’s not bad. I wonder if the US will have a smell when I go back, after I am used to the smell here. I wonder if this is the smell of Delhi or of all of India…
The airport was rather old and broken down. It seems that it was once very nice, but has not been maintained. I walked up the jetbridge, looked confused, and was directed to Immigration, after which, I was told, I could get my checked bag before going through customs.
There were two lines in Immigration. One for Indian passport holders, and one for foreign passport holders. I got in the foreigner line. The flight crew got into a third line–the diplomat/offical line. As I walked through my line I looked at the people. Everyone in the Indian line looked Indian, except for one girl. She looked more east Asian and was dressed very American. Later I saw her move to the foreigner line. Oops. There were a fair amount of Indians in the foreigner line too. Beyond the lines there was a duty-free shop selling liquor, iPods, and other wares. It was conspicuously lavish inside the aged airport.
I was surprised that my bag was not searched or even opened. My disembarkation card was taken except for a stub, which I would give to customs after getting my bag. My bag was already on the carousel because of the wait at Immigration, so I grabbed it and headed for the green lane at customs. A man took my stub, looked at my passport, counted my bags, and waved me through. I was in India.
I saw the Thomas Cook booth and knew what it was for, but now I just needed to find the airport shuttle. After searching outside for a bit, I gave up. I had been offered rides and taxis multiple times. Probably had something to do with white skin and bewildered expression. But now I had a problem. I needed a prepaid taxi, but had only American money. To get back in the terminal I needed a ticket which cost 60 Rupees. I was able to solicit pity and was allowed back inside without a ticket. I got some rupees, got a taxi ticket and found a taxi. The vehicle, a Maruti Suzuki Omni, was like a mini van in miniature. On the ride back, I learned about driving in Delhi. Turn signals are for asking, horns are for telling. Delhiites favour the latter, yet road rage seems to be a foreign concept. Signs on vehicles read things like Stop in Gothic letters and Power Brake. My favourite is triangular and red, sort of like an upside-down yield sign, with the word STOP and a skull and cross-bones. On large trucks, horn please and blow horn are common. Besides signs, many vehicles have other decorations. Large trucks are often colourfully painted. Many dashboards feature miniature shrines.
Autorickshaws are very common. Lanes are more of a suggestion than a requirement. If you can fit three cars in two lanes, why shouldn’t you? But then, some large vehicles take a whole lane by themselves. They generally are slower too, and so you pass them on the right or left–anywhere there’s enough asphalt. So cars are constantly honking and darting in front of one another, speeding past in the next lane or between lanes or on the side of the road. Cars are small and motorcycles and scooters are abundant. One scooter in particular caught my attention. A man drove and in back a woman wearing salwar kameez rode sidesaddle behind him with a large bag on her lap. Being a former British colony, one drives, of course, on the left side of the road, with the driver’s seat being on the right side of the car. My reaction was somewhat similar to when I first came to LA–people drive like total idiots, but it’s actually because they are more skilled drivers. For all the chaos, I’ve yet to see an accident.
I got to the hotel, checked in, and went to bed.
In the morning, I went to get my complimentary breakfast upstairs. The rooftop restaurant was nice. I tried a couple of Indian dishes (shunning the cornflakes). Curry for breakfast was a new experience. I had (instant) coffee and pineapple juice to drink. I chatted from the next table with an older English woman who was here with her husband.
I checked out, shot a quick “still alive” e-mail to my parents, and bought an inexpensive tour/taxi ride around the city to keep me occupied until my flight.
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05.18.07
Posted in India, Narratives
at 22:25
Ashley took me to the airport. It was nice to see her a little more before leaving, especially since I won’t see her for six or seven months.
I had allowed for missing several flights, since flying standby is always a bit rough. But I made the first one. I got to Chicago, and realised, Crap, my bag didn’t get checked through. The little baggage claim check said ORD and not DEL. I had a feeling this would mean being stuck outside airport security for a while, but if I didn’t do something, I would arrive in India without my checked bag. So I left the terminal, grabbed my bag and proceeded to the international check-in/baggage check booth. As I feared, I couldn’t check in until four hours before my flight. I asked if there was anywhere other than Starbucks to eat, and was directed to Terminal 5, where I had some Uno’s pizza (which I found *not* to be Chicago’s best…)
Afterward, I still had a couple hours to kill before I could reenter the secure area, so I called Erik since he lives in Chicago. We chatted for a while, then I decided to explore O’Hare a bit. I was intrigued by a sign I saw for an airport chapel, but was disappointed to discover that it was in the secure area.
After waiting a while and checking in, I entered the secure area. I passed another sign for the chapel and thought of checking it out, but I wanted to find my gate first. My gate was quite far from the chapel, though, and when I got there I was not curious enough to go back.
The flight wasn’t too bad. Somehow about twenty six hours passed during a fourteen hour flight. (Timezones…) Business class was about as comfortable as anyplace where you’re forced to sit for that long can be. Bose noise-canceling headphones are standard issue in first and business classes. I’ve used them before, but it wasn’t before this time that I experienced feedback with them. I guess it makes sense that it’s possible because they do use microphones. If you try to take them off without turning off the noise canceling, sometimes they will squeal. They also sometimes squeal if you cover the outside of the ear cups.
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05.11.06
Posted in Narratives
at 15:11
(sequel to The Beach is Closed.)
Last Wednesday, Ashley was on campus. I still had the hotdogs and s’more raw materials, so I invited her, Jen, and Susan over. Jen microwaved the hotdogs and I fried up some hamburgers, then we toasted s’mores over the gas stove. Not quite as fun without the beach or the campfire, but after three failed attempts and a rapidly approaching summer vacation, we made do.
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04.08.06
Posted in Narratives
at 19:06
announced a male voice through the loudspeaker of a lifeguard’s pickup that was making its way down the coast.
Damn, I thought. I had managed to kindle a fire, and Ashley and I sat waiting for Susan and Jen to arrive. We’d known the beach closed at 22:00, but we’d decided to chance their not enforcing it. Besides, no one else was leaving. Until the truck came. And so our fears were realised. There would be no hot dogs and s’mores tonight. No frolicking in the surf. No taking pictures.
It occurred to me that there’s something fundamentally wrong with closing the beach. There was no time to think on such matters, however—it was 22:15 and none of us had eaten. We walked to the restaurant at the end of the pier, only to find that it, too, was closed. Finally we settled for our favourite microbrew restaurant. Somehow, even when it seems like everything is going wrong, we still manage to have fun. Praise the Lord.
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04.03.06
Posted in Narratives
at 22:37
Last night I had a bad caffeine trip. My roommate decided to make coffee. He doesn’t usually drink coffee, so he didn’t know the proportions. I told him two coffee measures makes a cup of coffee. He decided to make three cups for the two of us.
What I didn’t tell him was that by ‘a cup’ I meant 12oz. I told him this because when I make coffee for myself, I brew this amount for my oversized mug. In any case, I measured the water and he measured the coffee, so the proportions came out correctly, but we made four cups of coffee.
It didn’t occur to me that drinking half again as much coffee as I’m used to drinking in the morning at 23:00 was a bad idea. We sipped our coffee and watched (ironically) Lord of the Beans. It didn’t even occur to me to go to bed until almost 02:00. At 04:00, I decided to get out of bed and do jumping jacks and pushups to see if I could wear myself out enough to fall asleep. I did fall asleep, but this morning I woke up still wired. I decided to skip my morning cup.
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01.28.06
Posted in Narratives
at 20:13
Thursday night I was invited on a roadtrip to Santa Barbara. Twenty hours later, we hit the road. My friend Jen and I, and two of Jen’s next door neighbors, Josh and Jackson were going to support Jen’s friend Suz, who had a gig (playing guitar and singing) at a small, but classy restaurant in the downtown of the SB. After some trouble with one way streets and questionable addresses, we found the place in time for Suz’s second set. We got a table and ordered dinner. We were able to eat in a leisurely manner and enjoy the show.
Afterward, we followed Suz and her friend Steve to Suz’s uncle Elliot’s house where we were to stay the night. It was a very nice house nestled in the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains–high enough to escape light pollution and afford a beautiful view of the ocean. Uncle Elliot greeted us and offered us soda, chips, and frozen pizza, then retired to the den to watch a movie. The six of us kids got in the hot tub and admired the stars. After a while, the ladies segregated themselves to talk and make pizza. When the pizzas were done, we joined them inside, then went upstairs to watch Hitch. We didn’t get to sleep until four in the morning. Josh, Jackson and I slept on a balcony that connected the girls’ room and Steve’s room. We woke to an awesome view. The sun was rising behind the house and beautiful colours reflected on the water. Oil rigs stuck up out of the fog like black pirate ships, and in the distance, the silhouette of the Channel Islands could just be made out against the clouds. I admired the view for about thirty seconds without getting up, then slept in until 10:30.
Uncle Elliot made us a wonderful breakfast. We finally left his house at noon. Suz and Steve went to buy new tires for Suz’s car. The rest of us went to the beach. We leisurely walked up the beach, skipping rocks, watching dolphins, admiring starfish and sea anemones and hermit crabs, and collecting shark pods. Then we drove back. It was a really beautiful twenty-four-hour vacation.
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01.20.06
Posted in Narratives
at 00:25
Alexander (seriously) : Wow, there must be twenty stars out tonight.
Erik: That many?
Alexander: Yeah.
Erik: It is pretty clear tonight.
Alexander: *laughs* That’s really sad.
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01.10.06
Posted in Confessions, Narratives
at 19:46
Today I found something in my mailbox today that made me mad. It was the payment for the electric bill I mailed last week. A note with a smiley face was taped to it: Hello! Just a friendly reminder that the price of stamps has been raised to 39 cents as of 01/08/2006[...]
The first thing that occurred to me was that this particular bill was due yesterday. Problem. The second was that I had mailed the payment prior to 01/08/2006. Uhh…Sunday. Yes, I mailed it Friday. Before 3PM even. Isn’t it reasonable to expect mail to be picked up the day it’s mailed? Certainly the day after. If it had gone out Friday, it should’ve had no problem making it down the street by the due date. That it had been returned to me four days after I’d sent it for having insufficient postage, when clearly the postage was correct on the day I sent it, was simply inexcusable. Those Student Post Office Nazis probably saved up several days worth of mail until Monday, just so they could sell more two cent stamps! The note went on to advertise that they were selling two cent stamps. Proof! I prepared myself to explain to the window lady how unacceptable this was, though I thought accusations of stamp-scalping might best be left to speculation.
Then it hit me (it was the Holy Spirit) how ridiculous this was. The window lady couldn’t fix the fact that my payment was late. Furthermore, she probably had nothing to do with the unfortunate situation. I realised that I didn’t have any right to be angry. And yet I was. Why was I angry? Then I understood, and laughed. I was angry because in truth I knew that it was my own fault. I had debated at the time the wisdom of sending the payment by mail so close to the deadline. And acted against my own better judgement.
I think we do this more than we realise. If something is truly beyond our control, there is no reason to be defensive. When we find ourselves defensive, it’s usually because we know it’s our own fault. By feeling hurt and enraged we betray our own guilt in an attempt to hide it.
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11.29.05
Posted in Narratives
at 01:18
Wednesday morning, Ashley and I hit the road again. Undaunted by our now-infamous adventures last summer, we embarked on another exciting endeavour. This time we left a mere fifteen minutes after our intended time of departure. And drove straight through. Sixteen hours later, we rolled in.
While our parents, siblings, and pets slept unawares, we sneaked into our homes and fell asleep. Thanksgiving morning, I called my mother.
“Hi, Hon.”
“Hi Mom, happy Thanksgiving.”
“You too. Are you still going to Jen’s?”
“Yeah.”
“What time are they eating?”
“11:30ish.”
[...]
“Sorry I couldn’t fly out for Thanksgiving. I know you really wanted to see me, but tickets were so expensive and Christmas break is in a couple of weeks. It just didn’t seem worth it. Plus I didn’t want to ditch Ashley.”
“It’s okay, as long as you’re okay with it.”
“Even though I couldn’t fly out, I did the next best thing. Go look in my room.”
She was quite surprised to see me sitting there. It was really nice to be home.
Sunday morning we headed back, bearing south to avoid some weather in the mountains. Apparently we just missed Andrew as we passed through Santa Fe on I-25. Or maybe he was right behind us as we listened to Serenity on my car’s CD player. Aside from some traffic in Gallup, NM, the return trip went without a hitch. Praise God.
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08.20.05
Posted in Narratives
at 12:54
Update:
It has come to my attention that the following details of my story were incorrect.
- It was not a CD, but my cell phone that I heard smack against the ground.
- The blow was fatal. I like to think it didn’t even feel anything.
- Apparently either she or the driver put the phone back into the van after this.
Accordingly, I have obtained a new phone.
:)
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