Thursday, January 10, 2008
Flashback: Late Night In London
The following was written in July 2003, after a frustrating first evening in London, England.
The passport line at Stansted Airport was long. Very long. Several hundred people long and I'm watching the time tick away until the last train leaves that I have a ticket for, watching 10 pounds waste away in that train ticket. The line moves extremely slowly as there are only two or three passport counters open for the Non EU passengers. In most airports, when the line is exceedingly long, they waive non EU passport holders to the EU line to shorten waits. Not here. It was 12.30 before I got to baggage claim.
Half an hour after the last train to London left the airport. After wandering the airport for several minutes, I found a bus that was to take me to downtown London for just 10 pounds. I was really tired, starting to get cranky, and wished that I could have gotten a better timed flight to get to London. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20. Oh did I tell you I couldn't find a cash machine at the airport either? I'd need to catch a night bus to my friend's house in Brixton once I got to Victoria station. So before I could board the bus, I'd need to get to a cash machine. I got off at Victoria coach station, the bus driver directing me to a cash machine. It was out of order. I wander around towards Victoria rail station... realizing that the night buses leave from the railroad station which is closed, and not from the bus station whose terminal is closed but remains open all night.
After wandering around the area for half an hour, I finally find the rail station and look in vain for a cash machine. It is now 3 AM and I'm hopelessly lost and unable to raise the one pound I need to get on the bus. So, I hire a cab. The first one tells me I can get to Brixton for 8 pounds. I take him up on it but he says that if I want to go with credit card, I have to get a radio cab. Those cost more by the way, and the one I hailed had a broken credit card machine so I still had to stop at a cash machine to pay him. But I did save the 20% credit card surcharge. Total cost of the cab ride? 13.20. This brings my Stansted to Brixton trip cost to nearly 35 pounds, or about 30% more than the cost of the flight from Germany to London. I get dropped off at the Brixton tube station, hiking the quarter mile to Barbara's house where she's waiting for me in her pajamas, sitting under her sunflowers.
At last, I'm home. Able to sleep and able to forget the nightmare of a city commute. My flight landed at Stansted at 11.20pm London time. I reached Barbara's flat 4 hours later. Total distance traveled? About 75 kilometers. Looking back on the situation, I can laugh about it... it wasn't that awful. I did get to see things I've never seen before. I did get to wander around a little bit... even if I was carrying all that weight on my back as I did it. And it did let me have a wonderful night's sleep.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Flashback: Brazil, July 28 2006
The following is an excerpt from my private journal about my trip to Rio in July of 2006. This was the day that we made it to Corcovado, but what I noticed reading this over a second time was how much emphasis I placed personally on the people I was with. With one or two exceptions, I've never heard from any of these people again. At the time it felt like I'd made friends for life... but that's what happens when you travel.
Some days I feel like I've done nothing, today I
Hector works at Trader Joe's in LA and is a real nice guy, he's traveling for two weeks - doing a few days in Rio, Iguacu Falls and then Buenos Aires. Emerson works for the Brazilian government. He works with projects that the federal and state governments are doing in conjunction with international organizations. He grew up in Brasilia so this is part work, part fun for him.
We finally got rolling out of here at about 11:30. About two hours after the plan. One of the things about being in a hostel is that when you find people to gang around with, it can take a while to get us all ready to do the same thing. Once we finally got out and ready to go, we took a bus to Corcovado and instead of the tram, the five of us split with a private driver. He took us to a couple lookout spots on the way up. (Corcovado is in an urban forest - a remnant of the rain forest that was around Rio years ago and some of which is still there to the north and south of the city). The views were stunning, you could see everything and the planes which were landing in the local airport (jet planes, mind you) are just about at eye level. It's a little nuts. After we got to the base of Corcovado, you have two options. Stairs (which give you more opportunity to pay ridiculously expensive prices for crappy souvenirs) or the elevator. I was all about the stairs, all about the new, slightly more aerodynamic, slightly less sloth-filled and gluttonous me. About half way up the stairs, I changed my mind, but it was too late to stop. Before long, I was at the top, with the same view that Jesus has.
Corcovado is the name of the mountain that Christ the Redeemer sits on. It was named it for the shape of the mountain, described as a hunch back. Atop the mountain is the statue, the largest art deco sculpture in the world. It really is a wonder and was built in 1931. One thing you notice from being that high is the smog. Rio is a city of ten million people who are letting a lot of crap in the air and the haze was so bad that the entire north end of the city was barely visible from the top of Corcovado. The south side was somewhat prettier. The water over the ocean helped to clear some of it off.
Rio never has many smog free days, but that's because its tropical, literally. It lies just north of the Tropic of Capricorn which means even winter days like today see highs in the mid 90's, like today. But I'm used to the heat now and it doesn't bother me much at all. But without cooler winters, the air is always hazy. Seems the colder the weather, the less crap you actually see in the air.
Our driver was very nice and on the way down offered to drive us through the Favela that he lives in. It's a pretty safe favela, or slum, but safe is a relative term. We didn't get out of the car, we didn't go there at night and I didn't dare pull out the camera. I just didn't want to lose it. The Favelas by and large in Rio (at least as the story goes) are kind of self-policed. Violently. And crime to people outside of the Favelas is just accepted as so. The biggest, baddest one of them all is Rocinha, which we did NOT go through. A couple of people in our hostel tried to go themselves, without a tour. They lasted two minutes there and came back to the hostel, not just lighter their wallets but their shoes and socks too.
Rio is not the safest place on earth, but usually you're OK as long as you're careful and not stupid. Walking into a favela unaccompanied is stupid.
After Corcovado, it was a quick ride back to the hostel for a couple minutes and then off to Ipanema for another afternoon at the beach. I tried to swim. The surf is high on Ipanema - and I found myself being turned literally underwater as the 7 foot waves knocked me around like a rag doll. It was both exhilarating and scary. Complete lack of control and you just pray to be alright in the end (but still a lot of fun) It's sort of like a bus ride in Rio.
Afterwords we saw the bar that Antonio Carlos Jobim and Stan Getz wrote The Girl from Ipanema. The bar is still open, now renamed The Girl from Ipanema Bar. We didn't get anything, but the bar across the street was having a Bossa Nova show today. I was all about the show and Emerson and I went after we hung out for live Samba music from two local Rio guitarists. Great music from two guys whose name I cant remember [ feel like I've done a lot. Our gang about Rio is facing some changes in staffing. Gone is Evelyn. Olivia did her own thing today - mostly the beach. Maria and Matthew and I were joined with two new people. Hector, from LA, and Emerson, from Brasilia, the country's capital.It was Antonio Carlos & Jocafi]. But it was wonderful and a great end to another day in Rio. I can't believe I really only have two days left on my vacation. Gotta make the most of it.
The following is an excerpt from my private journal about my trip to Rio in July of 2006. This was the day that we made it to Corcovado, but what I noticed reading this over a second time was how much emphasis I placed personally on the people I was with. With one or two exceptions, I've never heard from any of these people again. At the time it felt like I'd made friends for life... but that's what happens when you travel.
Some days I feel like I've done nothing, today I
Hector works at Trader Joe's in LA and is a real nice guy, he's traveling for two weeks - doing a few days in Rio, Iguacu Falls and then Buenos Aires. Emerson works for the Brazilian government. He works with projects that the federal and state governments are doing in conjunction with international organizations. He grew up in Brasilia so this is part work, part fun for him.
We finally got rolling out of here at about 11:30. About two hours after the plan. One of the things about being in a hostel is that when you find people to gang around with, it can take a while to get us all ready to do the same thing. Once we finally got out and ready to go, we took a bus to Corcovado and instead of the tram, the five of us split with a private driver. He took us to a couple lookout spots on the way up. (Corcovado is in an urban forest - a remnant of the rain forest that was around Rio years ago and some of which is still there to the north and south of the city). The views were stunning, you could see everything and the planes which were landing in the local airport (jet planes, mind you) are just about at eye level. It's a little nuts. After we got to the base of Corcovado, you have two options. Stairs (which give you more opportunity to pay ridiculously expensive prices for crappy souvenirs) or the elevator. I was all about the stairs, all about the new, slightly more aerodynamic, slightly less sloth-filled and gluttonous me. About half way up the stairs, I changed my mind, but it was too late to stop. Before long, I was at the top, with the same view that Jesus has.
Corcovado is the name of the mountain that Christ the Redeemer sits on. It was named it for the shape of the mountain, described as a hunch back. Atop the mountain is the statue, the largest art deco sculpture in the world. It really is a wonder and was built in 1931. One thing you notice from being that high is the smog. Rio is a city of ten million people who are letting a lot of crap in the air and the haze was so bad that the entire north end of the city was barely visible from the top of Corcovado. The south side was somewhat prettier. The water over the ocean helped to clear some of it off.
Rio never has many smog free days, but that's because its tropical, literally. It lies just north of the Tropic of Capricorn which means even winter days like today see highs in the mid 90's, like today. But I'm used to the heat now and it doesn't bother me much at all. But without cooler winters, the air is always hazy. Seems the colder the weather, the less crap you actually see in the air.
Our driver was very nice and on the way down offered to drive us through the Favela that he lives in. It's a pretty safe favela, or slum, but safe is a relative term. We didn't get out of the car, we didn't go there at night and I didn't dare pull out the camera. I just didn't want to lose it. The Favelas by and large in Rio (at least as the story goes) are kind of self-policed. Violently. And crime to people outside of the Favelas is just accepted as so. The biggest, baddest one of them all is Rocinha, which we did NOT go through. A couple of people in our hostel tried to go themselves, without a tour. They lasted two minutes there and came back to the hostel, not just lighter their wallets but their shoes and socks too.
Rio is not the safest place on earth, but usually you're OK as long as you're careful and not stupid. Walking into a favela unaccompanied is stupid.
After Corcovado, it was a quick ride back to the hostel for a couple minutes and then off to Ipanema for another afternoon at the beach. I tried to swim. The surf is high on Ipanema - and I found myself being turned literally underwater as the 7 foot waves knocked me around like a rag doll. It was both exhilarating and scary. Complete lack of control and you just pray to be alright in the end (but still a lot of fun) It's sort of like a bus ride in Rio.
Afterwords we saw the bar that Antonio Carlos Jobim and Stan Getz wrote The Girl from Ipanema. The bar is still open, now renamed The Girl from Ipanema Bar. We didn't get anything, but the bar across the street was having a Bossa Nova show today. I was all about the show and Emerson and I went after we hung out for live Samba music from two local Rio guitarists. Great music from two guys whose name I cant remember [ feel like I've done a lot. Our gang about Rio is facing some changes in staffing. Gone is Evelyn. Olivia did her own thing today - mostly the beach. Maria and Matthew and I were joined with two new people. Hector, from LA, and Emerson, from Brasilia, the country's capital.It was Antonio Carlos & Jocafi]. But it was wonderful and a great end to another day in Rio. I can't believe I really only have two days left on my vacation. Gotta make the most of it.
Labels: antonio carlos and jocafi, bossa nova, brazil, corcovado, flashback, friends, rio, travel
Monday, May 07, 2007
Flashback: June 2003. The Start of Something Big
The date was June 4 and I was in South Bend. Sitting in John's VW, eating double cheeseburgers just before I was to start my new ambition of coasting across the world and living hand to mouth on odd jobs and the charity of friends and well wishers. Being as cheap as possible, I found myself flying out of New York and taking a 24 hour train across the midwest and northeast of the country to get there. Standing at that rundown station, in a not so nice part of the down at heel city - there were lots of feelings running through me. Feelings I wasn't ready to accept yet. It was the end of a lot of things - a difficult relationship with John, the boyfriend of 3+ years that I was about to leave for this dream, a very poor professional situation that was on its way to bankrupting me, a general feeling of malaise and being in a rut, and a feeling of comfortability.
It was the start of a lot of things too. My new career of travel was definitely one, which would soon founder along with my confidence. My love affair with simplicity in life (which I would grow again to hate, and then love again) started that week too. I was off to find a life, find a self-confidence and self-motivation. I was ready to get things started!
I was conflicted that day. Leaving my entire life behind. My material goods mostly stuffed in my old childhood bedroom, the boyfriend I'd grown to love despite all of our relationship's failings, my career - however shitty. I felt like I was at the start of big opportunities... and big mistakes. Turns out I was right on both counts.
The train pulled away from the station, my point of no return reached. I shed a tear, sat in my seat - and watched the miles start to fly by, not knowing what the future holds. I was a little sad. I was a little excited - but mostly ready to get moving and take whatever life had to offer.
The date was June 4 and I was in South Bend. Sitting in John's VW, eating double cheeseburgers just before I was to start my new ambition of coasting across the world and living hand to mouth on odd jobs and the charity of friends and well wishers. Being as cheap as possible, I found myself flying out of New York and taking a 24 hour train across the midwest and northeast of the country to get there. Standing at that rundown station, in a not so nice part of the down at heel city - there were lots of feelings running through me. Feelings I wasn't ready to accept yet. It was the end of a lot of things - a difficult relationship with John, the boyfriend of 3+ years that I was about to leave for this dream, a very poor professional situation that was on its way to bankrupting me, a general feeling of malaise and being in a rut, and a feeling of comfortability.
It was the start of a lot of things too. My new career of travel was definitely one, which would soon founder along with my confidence. My love affair with simplicity in life (which I would grow again to hate, and then love again) started that week too. I was off to find a life, find a self-confidence and self-motivation. I was ready to get things started!
I was conflicted that day. Leaving my entire life behind. My material goods mostly stuffed in my old childhood bedroom, the boyfriend I'd grown to love despite all of our relationship's failings, my career - however shitty. I felt like I was at the start of big opportunities... and big mistakes. Turns out I was right on both counts.
The train pulled away from the station, my point of no return reached. I shed a tear, sat in my seat - and watched the miles start to fly by, not knowing what the future holds. I was a little sad. I was a little excited - but mostly ready to get moving and take whatever life had to offer.
Labels: flashback, navelgazing, trains, travel
