southwest to san diego
Posted on May 20, 2004
The Babbling Brooke of 1918 is unflappable in her drone of smal talk--even ignored, she proceeds to chatter across me to the uninterested fellow to my right. Southwest's no-frills service has established a new level on the playing field for austerity: no headphones/audio, let alone a tv; not even a tray table. BB is now fiddling with the zipper of the woman in 3C; it's stuck, and she's condemned to 2 more hours of the cross-legged bathroom boogie. The Poisonwood Bible is a surprisingly emotional read, and is all that forestalls insanity on this free flight to San Diego.
jellied eels
Posted on May 15, 2004
Mmmm mmm good. Read Emily's description.
impresiones
Posted on May 01, 2004
A very familiar place. I'd spent only 1 day here prior to this visit, but London feels as familiar as a friend's neighborhood.
Everything is in English. The marketing and shopping and the style of the people are all nearly the same as I'm used to.
Big difference is the South Asian and Muslim presence. Languages I don't recognize at all and women cloaked head to toe in black; these do stand out. Still, it's just a different take on immigration, and the atmoshere doesn't even take me by surprise.
It's a surprisingly comfortable city. Lots going on, but not at a breakneck pace (from where I stand), and it seems very livable. If bloody expensive, I suppose.
pub life
Posted on May 01, 2004
Gallons of beer. Who cares that the weather is shite?
moist banking
Posted on April 29, 2004
It wasn't the proclamation itself; it was the situation. "I'm going to bloody wet myself" is a common enough sentiment. Why it came up, and came out, at the line for the ATM in Liverpool Street station remains beyond me.
east end
Posted on April 29, 2004
My milkshake tastes much better than yours. Deciding to fly to London to spend time with Lee is one of the best choices I've made in the past year, and I'd be lying if I acted like it was only the company. ;)
second thoughts
Posted on April 29, 2004
40J is the... tailbone of economy. My knees actually touch seat 39.
Still, with a window seat there can't be more than one 300lb human next
to me. That counts for something.
ritual predeparture reminiscence
Posted on April 29, 2004
Just as I sat to write, I was upgraded to a window seat. Once upon a
time, I used to be the Earl of Economy; I never got stuck in the
horrible center seat. So much has changed since those flights of
fancy: check-in by touch screen, lug your own bags to TSA, take your
shoes off... true, they always pulled me from the queue to take my shoes
off (and give me a good twice-over), but at least it made feel special.
iad - lhr
Posted on April 27, 2004
Off to London to see Lee, and surprisingly enough, Emily.
apartment search
Posted on February 11, 2003
I wish I could give video clips of the people I've met while looking for a flat. Maybe once the phones with video get to the U.S. (rumors are that they're here, but still scarce) I'll go through it again just for the laugh.
There was the nervous dude in the Castro who just couldn't stop qualifying everything he started to say. I sat for an hour, patiently not being rude, and must have said a total of 5 sentences. You know how sometimes in reaction to how the other person is behaving, you get more extremely opposite? I must have oozed off 3 layers of skin into his couch as I got increasingly relaxed, trying to chill him out by example.
the waiting place
Posted on February 11, 2003
I've become a regular in the internet line. The guy whose pants don't stay up wasn't here today, but the lady with the headwrap who hated the last peace march is. The bike messenger with ADD who got laid off yesterday is thankfully not.
took it.
Posted on February 09, 2003
Decided.
No details will be posted, but give the contact link below a try...
subletland
Posted on February 07, 2003
Came back from a great place today to 7 replies from my ad for Room Wanted--that I posted before leaving the house at 3 today.
At least something's going our way out here--if not the job market. Wish me luck; Dave and Alex had a great place, and sound chill to live with, more importantly.
2 down
Posted on February 06, 2003
2 places seen, both a little pricier than they're worth, but offered up by good people. Or so it seems...
Turns out that Sheela is actually a dominatrix by night in the Tenderloin, and Rebecca is Executive VP for customer service at Sprint...
Just kidding.
So far so good. Beautiful weather helps, and it's always such a great time getting familiar with the streets of a new city.
augh!
Posted on February 06, 2003
Uncle! Uncle!!
I can't read craigslist any more. 3 1/2 blocks from muni, 5 minute walk to the BART, 17.5 minute commute downtown in rush hour, 7 minutes to Costco... No more! No more!
It's been another productive middle of the night. I just hope I get a place before this drives me unrentably insane. And it's only Thursday...
"smile
Posted on February 05, 2003
"things could be worse" read the man's sign outside the supermarket.
In fact, it was a beautiful day, the guy with the sign was smiling, and the meeting tonight on nonprofit careers was very helpful, even surprisingly upbeat.
weather report
Posted on February 05, 2003
Just changed preferences on weather.com. From Barcelona to San Francisco: temp a constant 52, and the outlook from partly cloudy (though we all remember that meant one rogue cloud) to fair.
cisco.licious
Posted on February 04, 2003
In town, and the weather gives Barcelona a run for her money. 70 and cloudless two days after the groundhog.
Flying out, the land below went from swatches of flat land marked off in unnatural quadrilaterals, to the Rockies, just like you picture them, and back, with windmills scattered like headstones.
Up above, the leather seats and DirecTV on JetBlue--sweeeet. Stewardesses could've been hotter, and the headphones are an atrocity, but it does advertise a BYO policy (not for the stewardesses).
hassle
Posted on February 02, 2003
Not quite the big deal it could be, moving a few thousand miles to the left, but I don't know if I'll be recommending this to anyone. Got tomorrow to pick up the hiking backpack and drop off a box in DC, and fly out Tuesday at 8am from Dulles.
Hooray.
At least I've gotten a lot of responses to emails on sublets--though my favorite is already gone. :(
tuesday goes
Posted on January 31, 2003
A while back, Kerry wrote "Tuesday goes to Tokyo" over AIM. The phrase stuck. Tuesday just came to Annapolis, and now Tuesday'll probably go see Saint Francis by the bay.
That's right--the aftermath of yet another macroeconomic gold rush. Post-bubble Tokyo runs to post-bubble Silicon Valley. With a stopover in Manhattan, summer 02.
Maybe I'll even find the Left Coast version of Ikebukuro. Sublet on Geary, anyone?
Saddle up that tumbleweed. I'm on my way.
in a puff of smoke
Posted on January 31, 2003
He's gone.
Scrap that trip to W. Virginia, and the one to Boston. What was that guy's name? Oh yeah. I need $
See y'all in San Fran. Sucks being 10 years late for a gold rush.
broke
Posted on January 31, 2003
Wow. Broker'n I thought. Off to West Virginia this weekend (maybe cost of living is lower there??) to see long-lost Tilley, reputedly counting trees for the government, and then hiding in a small hole until the economy comes around.
he was an unamerican
Posted on January 26, 2003
Went to Japan as a jungamerican. Came home tolerant of slow restaurant service and shy when speaking to foreigners.
At the ASO last night (see side links for the recent scandal!) I met, for the first time, a Japanese person in my hometown. A professional music making it on her own, no less. There's now a Lebanese joint in the Harbor center, an El Salvadorian open market on Old Forest Drive, and yesterday John next door was taking cooking lessons from a Thai kid who goes to Annapolis High.
It's still Annapolis. After all, my first house sold to a Vietnamese family. Maybe my eyes are just oriented differently.
fat lady? sang.
Posted on January 22, 2003
Back in Annapolis. This town is great; it changes so little.
Clinton on CSpan-2 was one of the most welcome sights to coming home. Reading so much anti-American press in Europe was more than depressing, it actually got me tired. As a handful of old posts reveal (ah, licious laid bare), it even affected the site for a month or two.
The current newslinks on Gaudi (at right, these all credited to the wizard of oz) are interesting. I'll keep an open mind for a while, but I can't say I'm in support as of yet.
Opinions? Especially those in/from NYC? Too whimsical? Too freaking weird?
* * *
alsace
Posted on December 23, 2002
Day trip to Alsace. Europe is small, but not as small as it can feel.
Sucks having to leave it. The world was easier when jobs were being handed out like $5 pity donations through paypal.
Trip.licious has been rather barren of late. All you with couches to spare, get ready. I may have to take it to this page once again come February. And March. And April. And so on.
Cultural readaptation aside--that hard part is probably over. It'll linger, but it's the reinvention of the professional and relationshipal (hello?) self that's going to take some time.
Doing everything at once slows it all down, but with so much so grossly out of whack, it just won't be helped. No psychotherapy needed, but couch donations will be accepted.
xmas
Posted on December 20, 2002
In Boeblingen again!
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going home
Posted on October 14, 2002
It was worth going, but I'm through. Half-starved, underslept, and worn down from spending a week in an industry I'm making my way out of, it's back to my city of simple pleasures and confounded objectives. See you in Barcelona.
jazz
Posted on October 14, 2002
Hell with chronologicality!
Jazz on Saturday night may have been the best live music I've heard this year. Realizing that this will preface the following bit with quite the pathetic impression of my level of cultural appreciation, I implore you to retain an open mind.
Wandering through Sachsenhausen, the bar & pub district south of the Main in Frankfurt, the very last place Tagmar and I came across had a sign for live jazz. The ground floor suggested a more expensive atmosphere, but wasn't particularly unimpressive. I insisted on taking a closer look anyway, and through the thick, wooden door to the long, almost bomb-shelter secure basement, we found a short, white-haired German rasping out the last line of "Georgia On My Mind." I'd've laughed, too, but for the fact that his Sachmo impression was the best I've ever heard--only the occasional "ze" let on that he wasn"t American. Or black, for that matter.
Pablo Picasso on sax and clarinet had the face of a stereotypically emotionless stone slab of a German military officer, making his sound, and the two smiles (an hour into the show) delightful.
The bassist (upright, string) had beautiful rhythm, and his solos were unquestionably the best part of the evening. And when the 50something drummer whaled away on his moments of glory, you could tell immediately which of the Golden Girls he'd picked out for the evening.
Two points to the Germans for, literally, underground music.
incongruous
Posted on October 13, 2002
From the multiple Spanish tour groups efficiently (!) sightseeing their way through Mainz to the kids smoking dope on the S-Bahn, it's been an odd day. Wal-Mart ads laying on public transport seats, more dogs in public buildings where smoking is forbidden, and the taxi driver sing-songing 'scheeeiii©¬©¬©¬©¬eeee' slowly and sweetly as she snaps back from a daze, jumps lanes and sails through a red light.
wore out
Posted on October 13, 2002
Not having excess cash on a business trip sucks. I'm starting to feel a lot more for the exhibitors coming in from developing countries. Beyond the financial barrier to entry and the dubious air quality and lack of carpeting in Hall 5, Frankfurt/Main's moniker "Mainhattan" belies its decidedly North-American-financial-district atmosphere and high prices.
Archived trip.licious adventures.
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