I often receive emails from distant acquaintances who have decided to travel to Philadelphia on vacation and have come to know, probably from another distant acquaintance, that I live there. The email will usually be very effusive. More effusive than this person ever was in real life with me. And it will usually go something like, "Hiiiiiii!!!! gawker, do you remember me, we were cellmates in prison, I was the one who snitched on you and let the warden know about your plan to escape through the washbasin. Anyways, I am traveling to Philadelphia this summer. If I were visiting you in Philadelphia, which I'm not, where in Philadelphia would you take me to?"
The problem is, it is somewhat difficult to come up with a Philly itinerary on the spur of the moment. Some have chosen the production of tourist brochures as a career choice and I am not one of them. However, since Philadelphia appears to be quite a popular destination among Indians and since I happen to live in its vicinity, I took it upon myself to compile a list of what Philadelphia has to offer. Let us begin in the suburbs.
Valley Forge Historic Park
About 10 to 15 miles north-west of Philadelphia lies Valley Forge National Historic Park. Here is where General George Washington camped out with his troops in the winter of 1777 while pondering an attack on Philadelphia, which had been captured by the British and whose residents were now being forced to "smoke fags" and spell color with a "u".
The highlight of your tour of the park will be the hundred or so revolutionary era huts scattered about the park in which the miserable continental army camped out in horrible conditions, all the while, no doubt blaming Mexican immigrants for their plight. Another feature of this park are the massive herds of free-roaming deer who, due to the no-hunting policy instituted within the park, have reciprocated by utilizing every free moment to reproduce.
Of course, the reason the good general and his army had to camp out in this hellhole, however pristine, was something that took place a couple of years before in the city of Philadelphia, specifically, in Independence Hall.
Independence Hall
If you are aware of the existence of Philadelphia without having actually lived here, then the following is probably the extent of your knowledge of this city. Here is where the declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, which propelled the American colonists into a revolutionary war against Great Britain. In this brick building, you will visit the great hall where the actual Declaration of Independence was signed. Here, you will also discover that the great hall that you are standing in might not actually have been the place where the Declaration of Independence was signed. And, the furniture on display in the hall might not have been the furniture from that time. Even the windows you see from inside cannot be seen from outside, which means that even the fucking windows are fake. And the guide providing you with all this information is probably not a guide either but just some homeless guy who wandered inside with the intention of stealing wallets, but after finding out it was full of Indians, abandoned his plan.
Basically, apart from a general GPS proximity to the area, the current Independence Hall probably has no resemblance to the original Independence Hall. Heck, who the fuck knows if there even was an Independence Hall?
But you should go there regardless, because that's Independence Hall, bitches. It's not the building but what it stands for that's important, namely, Big Macs and Walmart. Also, it's got great public restrooms which by itself makes it an excellent tourist destination in Philly. It is also very close to the Liberty Bell.
The Liberty Bell
If Philadelphia were a burger franchise, it would distribute its bell-shaped burgers in a container shaped like a bell by a person wearing a bell for a cap, ringing a bell to let you know your order's ready. So, what is this famous bell that everybody keeps talking about?
The Liberty Bell is a unique relic from the revolutionary era. Its primary claim to fame is the giant crack that festers upon one of its sides. It's secondary claim to fame is that it was rung on July 8 1776 to summon the good citizens of Philadelphia for the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Of course, like every other piece of Philadelphia history, historians doubt that this actually happened. But that doesn't matter. For this bell has The Crack.
The Liberty Bell is the proud owner of the second-most famous crack in the world, the first belonging to Jennifer Lopez. It was a product of amazing 18th century American workmanship that caused it to crack during its very first test-ringing. Even after this debacle, people kept ringing the bell on festive occasions such as George Washington's birthday, Lafayette's return to Philadelphia and Alexander Hamilton's death. Ultimately, the growth of the crack caused the bell to become unusable, after which the primary purpose it served was in drawing tourist money to Philadelphia.
While visiting the Liberty Bell, you need to make sure that you are standing on the crack side of the bell. You see, the crack is only visible from one side. This is very important. If you visit the Liberty Bell but do not get to see its famous crack, it would be akin to traveling to New York and failing to get a blow job from a crack whore under the Brooklyn Bridge. Why, if you fail to see the fucking crack, you might as well not visit the damn thing at all, and merely get drunk at the Triumph Brewery instead.
The Triumph Brewery
Regardless of whether you visit the Liberty Bell or not, you should still visit the Triumph Brewery in Old City. Here, on the banks of the Delaware river (which you cannot see from the brewery per se) you will be able to sample the best of Philadelphia's microbrews. However, if you are planning to eat here, it would help if you are a person of small appetite. While I would not say that the portions have been specifically designed to fit comfortably inside a 5 year old's belly, well, why not, I would indeed say that. But the good news is, this area is well-endowed with other eating joints that are sure to satisfy the palate of every ethnicity. So drink your fill here and for lunch, go someplace else, say, the Reading Terminal Market.
The Reading Terminal Market
If the city of Philadelphia were a brothel, the Reading Terminal Market would be its flagship whore. The Reading Terminal Market is located right next door to the Market East train station in Central Philly.The history of this market can be traced back to mid-19th century Philadelphia when there used to be a number of open-air markets serving the city. After these open-air markets became dirty and unhygienic, city officials decided to bring all that dirt and lack of hygiene indoors and that is how the Reading Terminal Market came into existence.
The market has a number of shops selling all kinds of stuff, from produce to books to hippy alternative medicine to pigs feet to bluefish collars and parrotfish cheeks. While browsing through the market, the slightly depressing thought might pass through your mind that somewhere in the ocean, collarless bluefish are pointing and laughing at cheekless parrotfish. Dismiss it. Remind yourself of all those brainless humans who have it worse. The market is also chock-full of eating joints that offer the cuisine of a multitude of nationalities and ethnicities. Be aware that being violently hungry is a necessary condition for visiting the Reading Terminal Market. Going there on a full stomach would be akin to watching a pornographic movie after masturbating twice in rapid succession. It simply serves no purpose.
Since this place is usually packed to the brim, following a few simple rules of navigation would make your life a lot easier. Most importantly, if you're in a crowd of people that appears not to have moved at all within the last ten minutes, it is highly likely that you're standing in a line of some sort. It is then time to gently start nudging people aside, accompanied, if necessary with the threat of physical violence and move along.
Also, when you are moving from point A to point B, forget about the crow and how it prefers to fly in a straight line. A crow faces very little traffic in the air. You, on the other hand, will. So another rule of navigation in Reading Market is, always travel the perimeter route, which is usually less trafficked. The reason for that being the occasional garbage piles and the stink of death. But if you are from India, you should have little trouble dealing with it.
There are a number of such pockets of death scattered about the market where you might suddenly experience an overwhelming desire to faint. Just keep moving, and it will be replaced by pleasanter smells. The key is to keep moving.
Now, since I am a paranoid Indian from a country where being paranoid is necessary for staying alive and in good financial health, every time I am in a crowd, I keep checking my wallet. In Reading Terminal Market, despite the crowd, there is very little need to do so. Most of the people here are hungry and are searching for food. They have no use for wallets. However, if you are carrying a sandwich in your pocket, it might be worthwhile to check up on it periodically.
And as far as possible, try not to carry a frying pan with you. The temptation to hit people with it will be too strong to overcome.
Although the Reading Market gives you a large number of eating options, one of the best ones is the Rib Stand that sells fully cooked baby back and beef short ribs. Here, you will find heaven in the short term. And for adult beverages, you may check out the beer garden in the center of the market.
Note : The Rib stand does not have a place to sit and eat. Therefore, you will have to hijack the seating space of some other eating establishment. To avoid finding yourself in an awkward situation with the management of said establishment, make sure that it has a sufficiently eclectic menu so that your foreign foodstuffs may blend in.
In the unlikely event that nothing in Reading Terminal Market appeals to the gourmet in you, you have a final option to fall back on. The mighty South Philly cheesesteak.
The Mighty South Philly Cheesesteak
The mighty South Philly Cheesesteak inhabits the southern end of the city of Philadelphia. It may also be found hanging around in various other pockets of the city, but in order to experience the racially pure version, you will have to travel to South Philly.
You have a couple of choices : Pat's King of Steaks or Geno's steaks. These two restaurants are located on the same street, facing each other. Rumor is, they have a long history of rivalry that includes steak fights where foot-soldiers from each establishment battle each other with hunks of raw rib-eye and survivors feast on the spoils of victory all night until the breaking light of dawn.
I recommend you try both. Like this guy did.
The fact of the matter is, until you've tasted a Philly cheesesteak, you haven't really experienced Philadelphia. Or a clogged artery.
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Hiking up Mt. Whatsitsface
I woke up at 4:30 AM yesterday. Partly because my body continues to be unaware of its exact whereabouts, whether it's the US, India or the mid-Atlantic ridge. Also, in part because I was planning on hiking up Mt Whatsitsface that morning.
I was in Girivan, a private hill station near Pune with my family where my sister has built a bungalow at the base of Mt. Whatsitsface, a mountain that rises up above the rest of the village to a height of, let's say, a thousand feet, give or take five hundred. Historically, it was named Mt. Whatsitsface in the 2010s after numerous inquiries with regard to its name yielded no answers.
So there I was, standing outside the house at 6:00 in the morning, waiting for the caretaker Prabhakar, who was also going to be my guide, to show up. Apparently I needed a guide because otherwise I would fall off the mountain and die. It was still dark and I waited patiently, listening to morning sounds. And smelling morning smells. I decided to perform a few push-ups to kill time. I managed to do 30, give or take 25. Then it was back to waiting. Just then, I heard somebody running hard. Really hard. I guessed it was Prabhakar, really really eager to take me up the mountain of his ancestors.
It turned out to be a little brown dog, who appeared to be running for his life. After making a sharp right and squatting underneath the gate, he entered our garden and stood there with terror in his eyes. I could empathize because once, I used to be little and brown. And on occasion, I've had to run for my life. Thinking quickly, I gestured towards the back of the garden where I knew was a secret exit into the woods. Without pausing to bark his thanks at me, the dog ran out back.
After about 10 seconds, I heard some more running and three large white dogs appeared with the demeanor of people looking for a little brown dog. I stood there with a look on my face that said I hadn't seen a little brown dog and even if I had, you are too big to fit underneath the gate anyways, so eat me. They left, still looking.
I continued to wait. Finally, I saw Prabhakar in the distance, carrying what appeared to be an immensely long bamboo pole. It appeared that the plan was to pole-vault me onto the top of the mountain. As he opened the gate, I said to him, "Good morning Prabhakar, not to rain on your parade here, but I forgot to bring my blow-absorbent clothing and helmet."
"What?", he said.
"You know", I said and pointed at the bamboo pole.
"That's for the Gudi", said Prabhakar. "It's Gudi Padva today".
"Ah, yes", I said, realizing that today was indeed the Maharashtrian new year.
"Let me just get the Gudi up and then we'll leave", said Prabhakar.
"Okay", I said, hoping he wouldn't ask for help, thereby exposing the fraudulence of my Hindu affiliations.
Luckily, he was an expert at Gudi installation and did not require any assistance. After putting up the Gudi (which kind of resembles a broom all dressed up to be married to a mop from a wealthy family) and banging out milk from a coconut, he offered me a piece of its flesh as prasad which I gratefully accepted since I hadn't had any dinner the previous night. We then set off on our expedition.
The road up the mountain passed by Prabhakar's house, where he picked up his cellphone, no doubt to be able to phone in an emergency response team after I were to disappear off the side of the mountain. The road then turned into a footpath, began its ascent up the mountainside and got much steeper. Prabhakar, who is a wiry little guy, was making good time. Actually, much better time than I was because I was basically standing still, having propped myself against a tree and wiping my forehead.
"Hoy, Prabhakar", I yelled. "Can we go a bit slower?"
"Okay", he yelled back. I couldn't even see him.
"You know, it's just that I'm doing this for the first time in my life", I lied, hoping God wouldn't exact vengeance upon my mendacity by deleting all my hiking blog posts.
As I caught up with him, I asked him the question that had been constantly preying upon my mind.
"By the way Prabhakar, what is the name of this mountain that we are climbing?", I said.
"The mountain itself has no name, but this gap that we are climbing up to is called 'Waghjaichi Khinda'", he replied.
Waghjai can be loosely translated into Marathi as "Tiger goes".
"Why Waghjai?", I asked him, hoping to hear it's because tigers never went there.
"It's called that after the temple of Goddess Waghjai on top of the mountain", replied Prabhakar.
"Ah", I said. So that was that.
The path then grew even steeper, with leaves and small stones appearing on it, causing me to slip quite a bit. In addition, I was carrying a water bottle that was grossly impeding my efforts to grab on to the ground as I fell.
"Very dangerous section, this is", I said to Prabhakar, who, it appeared, was texting on his cellphone as he climbed.
"Here, give me that water bottle", he said, astutely realizing the issue.
I gratefully handed it over to him.
"Thanks", I said. "It's just that my shoes, you know, they aren't really meant for hiking", I said, pointing to my Timberland hiking boots. "They don't grip the ground as well as your....err....leather dress shoes".
After continuing to climb some more, we finally reached the flat top of Waghjai gap. There was a rather splendid view of the Mulshi valley with tiny hamlets clustered near the bottom of the mountain and Mulshi lake and dam farther along to the right. I could also see Sinhagad fort dimly outlined against the sky on the left. And on the other side, the twin forts of Lohagad-Visapur.
As I was wandering around, I saw a path going up the side of the mountain. I squinted at it because it was really hard to make out in the distance. What was worse was that I was standing five feet away from it.
"Is that the way up?", I asked Prabhakar.
"Yes", he replied.
"Okay then, I think we've climbed enough for today", I said. "Splendid view here, really splendid", I added and made to turn back.
"What's the matter? Don't you wish to visit the temple of the Goddess and offer your prayers?", said Prabhakar, visibly surprised.
"Well, it's just that I have problems with that path", I said, pointing at the thin, barely visible line on the mountainside. "It looks kind of slippery and there's very little to hang on to. Also, it's a direct fall to the bottom of the valley. And, I have height sickness", I added, just to round everything up nicely.
Prabhakar seemed unconvinced. "You know, a lot of 60 year olds have hiked that path".
"Well, I am almost 60", I replied. I am indeed closer to 60 than I am to 0.
"60 year old women", he added.
"Oh", I said. There really was nothing I could say to that.
"But I guess we can turn back if you want", said Prabhakar.
"I would like that", I said.
So, we turned back.
The hike back down was much more difficult than the hike up. I asked Prabhakar to let me go first. "Just so if I fall, I don't take you with me and you can save your own life", I explained. He seemed to appreciate my concern for his safety.
When we reached the section with leaves and stones, Prabhakar offered me the use of his stick. I declined.
"When I fall, I usually like to grab on to air and I won't be able to do that if I'm holding a stick", I explained.
As we were climbing down, I asked Prabhakar, "Has anybody ever fallen off this path"? It seemed unlikely that no one had because it wasn't a very easy hiking trail.
"No", he replied. "Not to my knowledge. In fact, even 60 year old women have made this hike with relative comfort", he added.
"Yes, you told me about the 60 year old women", I said to him, "but thanks for reminding me".
After fifteen more minutes of easier descending, we were back in the village. After paying him for his services, I told him that I'd be back and this time, we would go right up to the top and the temple of the Goddess. What I didn't tell him was that I'd also be bringing a 60 year old woman with me.
You know, because I'm really skeptical about that whole 60 year old woman business.
I was in Girivan, a private hill station near Pune with my family where my sister has built a bungalow at the base of Mt. Whatsitsface, a mountain that rises up above the rest of the village to a height of, let's say, a thousand feet, give or take five hundred. Historically, it was named Mt. Whatsitsface in the 2010s after numerous inquiries with regard to its name yielded no answers.
So there I was, standing outside the house at 6:00 in the morning, waiting for the caretaker Prabhakar, who was also going to be my guide, to show up. Apparently I needed a guide because otherwise I would fall off the mountain and die. It was still dark and I waited patiently, listening to morning sounds. And smelling morning smells. I decided to perform a few push-ups to kill time. I managed to do 30, give or take 25. Then it was back to waiting. Just then, I heard somebody running hard. Really hard. I guessed it was Prabhakar, really really eager to take me up the mountain of his ancestors.
It turned out to be a little brown dog, who appeared to be running for his life. After making a sharp right and squatting underneath the gate, he entered our garden and stood there with terror in his eyes. I could empathize because once, I used to be little and brown. And on occasion, I've had to run for my life. Thinking quickly, I gestured towards the back of the garden where I knew was a secret exit into the woods. Without pausing to bark his thanks at me, the dog ran out back.
After about 10 seconds, I heard some more running and three large white dogs appeared with the demeanor of people looking for a little brown dog. I stood there with a look on my face that said I hadn't seen a little brown dog and even if I had, you are too big to fit underneath the gate anyways, so eat me. They left, still looking.
I continued to wait. Finally, I saw Prabhakar in the distance, carrying what appeared to be an immensely long bamboo pole. It appeared that the plan was to pole-vault me onto the top of the mountain. As he opened the gate, I said to him, "Good morning Prabhakar, not to rain on your parade here, but I forgot to bring my blow-absorbent clothing and helmet."
"What?", he said.
"You know", I said and pointed at the bamboo pole.
"That's for the Gudi", said Prabhakar. "It's Gudi Padva today".
"Ah, yes", I said, realizing that today was indeed the Maharashtrian new year.
"Let me just get the Gudi up and then we'll leave", said Prabhakar.
"Okay", I said, hoping he wouldn't ask for help, thereby exposing the fraudulence of my Hindu affiliations.
Luckily, he was an expert at Gudi installation and did not require any assistance. After putting up the Gudi (which kind of resembles a broom all dressed up to be married to a mop from a wealthy family) and banging out milk from a coconut, he offered me a piece of its flesh as prasad which I gratefully accepted since I hadn't had any dinner the previous night. We then set off on our expedition.
The road up the mountain passed by Prabhakar's house, where he picked up his cellphone, no doubt to be able to phone in an emergency response team after I were to disappear off the side of the mountain. The road then turned into a footpath, began its ascent up the mountainside and got much steeper. Prabhakar, who is a wiry little guy, was making good time. Actually, much better time than I was because I was basically standing still, having propped myself against a tree and wiping my forehead.
"Hoy, Prabhakar", I yelled. "Can we go a bit slower?"
"Okay", he yelled back. I couldn't even see him.
"You know, it's just that I'm doing this for the first time in my life", I lied, hoping God wouldn't exact vengeance upon my mendacity by deleting all my hiking blog posts.
As I caught up with him, I asked him the question that had been constantly preying upon my mind.
"By the way Prabhakar, what is the name of this mountain that we are climbing?", I said.
"The mountain itself has no name, but this gap that we are climbing up to is called 'Waghjaichi Khinda'", he replied.
Waghjai can be loosely translated into Marathi as "Tiger goes".
"Why Waghjai?", I asked him, hoping to hear it's because tigers never went there.
"It's called that after the temple of Goddess Waghjai on top of the mountain", replied Prabhakar.
"Ah", I said. So that was that.
The path then grew even steeper, with leaves and small stones appearing on it, causing me to slip quite a bit. In addition, I was carrying a water bottle that was grossly impeding my efforts to grab on to the ground as I fell.
"Very dangerous section, this is", I said to Prabhakar, who, it appeared, was texting on his cellphone as he climbed.
"Here, give me that water bottle", he said, astutely realizing the issue.
I gratefully handed it over to him.
"Thanks", I said. "It's just that my shoes, you know, they aren't really meant for hiking", I said, pointing to my Timberland hiking boots. "They don't grip the ground as well as your....err....leather dress shoes".
After continuing to climb some more, we finally reached the flat top of Waghjai gap. There was a rather splendid view of the Mulshi valley with tiny hamlets clustered near the bottom of the mountain and Mulshi lake and dam farther along to the right. I could also see Sinhagad fort dimly outlined against the sky on the left. And on the other side, the twin forts of Lohagad-Visapur.
As I was wandering around, I saw a path going up the side of the mountain. I squinted at it because it was really hard to make out in the distance. What was worse was that I was standing five feet away from it.
"Is that the way up?", I asked Prabhakar.
"Yes", he replied.
"Okay then, I think we've climbed enough for today", I said. "Splendid view here, really splendid", I added and made to turn back.
"What's the matter? Don't you wish to visit the temple of the Goddess and offer your prayers?", said Prabhakar, visibly surprised.
"Well, it's just that I have problems with that path", I said, pointing at the thin, barely visible line on the mountainside. "It looks kind of slippery and there's very little to hang on to. Also, it's a direct fall to the bottom of the valley. And, I have height sickness", I added, just to round everything up nicely.
Prabhakar seemed unconvinced. "You know, a lot of 60 year olds have hiked that path".
"Well, I am almost 60", I replied. I am indeed closer to 60 than I am to 0.
"60 year old women", he added.
"Oh", I said. There really was nothing I could say to that.
"But I guess we can turn back if you want", said Prabhakar.
"I would like that", I said.
So, we turned back.
The hike back down was much more difficult than the hike up. I asked Prabhakar to let me go first. "Just so if I fall, I don't take you with me and you can save your own life", I explained. He seemed to appreciate my concern for his safety.
When we reached the section with leaves and stones, Prabhakar offered me the use of his stick. I declined.
"When I fall, I usually like to grab on to air and I won't be able to do that if I'm holding a stick", I explained.
As we were climbing down, I asked Prabhakar, "Has anybody ever fallen off this path"? It seemed unlikely that no one had because it wasn't a very easy hiking trail.
"No", he replied. "Not to my knowledge. In fact, even 60 year old women have made this hike with relative comfort", he added.
"Yes, you told me about the 60 year old women", I said to him, "but thanks for reminding me".
After fifteen more minutes of easier descending, we were back in the village. After paying him for his services, I told him that I'd be back and this time, we would go right up to the top and the temple of the Goddess. What I didn't tell him was that I'd also be bringing a 60 year old woman with me.
You know, because I'm really skeptical about that whole 60 year old woman business.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
The Flight
So here I am, back in the mother country after a hiatus of four years. I was told by a number of people to look forward to a lot of change. Lord, there were changes, and how. The most important change for me was, no more free booze on trans-Atlantic flights. What? This doesn't make any sense! I know a number of people who keep flying across the Atlantic just for the free booze. Me, for one. In this depressed economy, why would airlines risk losing this valuable segment of their clientele for some trivial savings in alcohol?
So since I knew I would be paying for booze anyways, I decided to start imbibing in the airport itself. Newark airport is an alcoholic's paradise. From the security check-in right up to the gates, I passed a number of fine drinking establishments, beginning with the Heineken lounge, which was full of people graphically demonstrating their enthusiasm for this rather ordinary beverage in outlandish ways irritating to the average person, and culminating in the Sam Adams lounge, where people were drinking Sam Adams. And lounging. This way of life looked good to me, so I jumped right into it.
The barmaid turned out to be very friendly. I ordered a Boston Lager, paid her in cash and began looking for a seat near a power outlet. The barmaid yelled after me.
"Are you in loaf?"
She had a pronounced Spanish accent.
"Excuse me?", I said, stopping in my tracks.
"I said, are you in loaf?", she repeated.
"What? Why are you asking me that?", I said.
While she disappeared momentarily to tend to another customer, I gave the guy at the next seat a puzzled glance.
"Has she asked you if you're in love?", I said.
"No", he replied.
"Why's she asking me that, then?", I said.
"Maybe she wants to lay you right here on the counter", he replied.
I started thinking, perhaps it would be a good time to be running for my life. Before I could do that, the lady returned.
"Hey, come on, are you in loaf?", she said.
"Why do you keep asking me that?", I said.
"Here, you gave me an extra twenty dollar bill", she said. "You got to be in loaf".
I grabbed the cash and found a seat.
For the next three hours, I proceeded to do Jim Koch proud. In fact, I'm pretty sure I did his father, grandfather and two uncles on his wife's side proud as well. With the entire line of heavenly Kochs bestowing upon me the golden shower of their pride, I went to the gate and boarded the plane.
I had a window seat and sure enough, it turned out to be right slam bang in the geometric center of the wing. There was no way I would be seeing any scenery unless, cross your fingers, the wing were to fall off. But I'd heard disturbing stories about people having faced some difficulty in flying a trans-Atlantic jumbo jetliner with only one intact wing so I uncrossed my fingers.
Continental Airlines has some bizarre food on its Newark-Mumbai flights. It's almost as if the company has no Indian employees and none of its employees have any Indian acquaintances. So when it came to creating a menu for, let's say at a conservative guess, a half-planeful of Indian people, Continental Airlines was nonplussed. So they turned to the Great Gazoogle for advice. Searched for the term "Indian food", randomly paired each search result with an item of American food and voila, there was the menu.
The main course was chicken biryani. With chicken prepared Italian style. There was also salad. With two green chillies that had about as much spice content as a cotton blanket. And there was moong dal. Which appeared to have been sauted in butter with breadcrumbs. And for dessert, there was shrikhand. Followed by fat free plain yogurt. All in all, a strange exotic dinner. No doubt prepared by someone with the head of an Indian, the body of an American and the breasts of Angelina Jolie. I don't know, it's just that studies have concluded that every male thinks about Angelina Jolie's breasts about once every 5 seconds.
I don't know what it is about Indians that makes it extremely difficult for them to stay seated on flights. It's like they are just aching to be liberated from the shackles of relaxed buttock and pain-free lower back. And it's always the guy in front of you. He's either getting up from his seat and looking around, trying to gauge the probability of success of inciting a mass uprising against the pilot's fascist diktat of remaining seated until the fasten seat-belts sign's been turned off, or jabbing his fingers at the LCD, trying to get it to work, even though everybody else's is clearly also showing the same start-up screen. That is why when you have to fart in the plane (and let us not pretend that you don't because that would contradict the very laws of physics), it's a good idea to direct the jet right at the person in front of you. See, you don't know the guy behind you. For all you know, he might be a decent fellow, perhaps even a philanthropist, trying to save the world from AIDS and hunger. He certainly deserves the benefit of doubt. On the other hand, the guy in front of you is definitely a douchebag. He's probably responsible for half the world's AIDS and hunger. So fuck him and let the methane fly.
Despite the unorthodox and slightly nauseating food, I had a great flight. Hey, how could you go wrong with non-stop? Plus, my entire row of seats was unoccupied so I had a considerable amount of leg room to indulge my restless legs syndrome in. And soon, in what appeared to be practically no time whatsoever, the plane was preparing for its final descent, the pilot had turned the fasten seat-belts sign back on and the asshole in front of me was again looking for people to accompany him in playing catch in the aisles.
Mumbai airport was a pleasant surprise. Somebody appears to have finally come to a realization that even though the airport is government property, that in itself does not mandate its resemblance to a government office in appearance. The walls seemed to have been freshly painted, the corridors were lush with carpeting and even the signs requesting travelers not to jump into a cab with a random stranger offering to accompany you to a hotel were far more persuasive, affiliated as they were with an institute of considerably less decrepitude than before.
The other thing I noticed about Mumbai airport is that in order to get to the Baggage Claim from Immigration, everybody and their uncle has to pass through the duty-free store. I guess somebody's been taking lessons from Vegas, eh? This is where sales people accost you and gently explain why, if you were to refrain from purchasing a liter-sized bottle of Chivas Regal for your father, you would be a terrible son and your father would be so ashamed of you as not to include a single item of fakery in his narratives of your exploits to the neighbors. So heck, you purchase two bottles, because the excruciating banality of your life certainly demands fakery in its recounting, plus, they are on sale and come with a free DVD. This DVD contains hilarious real-life footage of people being convinced into purchasing two bottles of Chivas Regal instead of one. Who, for crying out loud, could pass up this offer?
Not you.
And neither could I.
So since I knew I would be paying for booze anyways, I decided to start imbibing in the airport itself. Newark airport is an alcoholic's paradise. From the security check-in right up to the gates, I passed a number of fine drinking establishments, beginning with the Heineken lounge, which was full of people graphically demonstrating their enthusiasm for this rather ordinary beverage in outlandish ways irritating to the average person, and culminating in the Sam Adams lounge, where people were drinking Sam Adams. And lounging. This way of life looked good to me, so I jumped right into it.
The barmaid turned out to be very friendly. I ordered a Boston Lager, paid her in cash and began looking for a seat near a power outlet. The barmaid yelled after me.
"Are you in loaf?"
She had a pronounced Spanish accent.
"Excuse me?", I said, stopping in my tracks.
"I said, are you in loaf?", she repeated.
"What? Why are you asking me that?", I said.
While she disappeared momentarily to tend to another customer, I gave the guy at the next seat a puzzled glance.
"Has she asked you if you're in love?", I said.
"No", he replied.
"Why's she asking me that, then?", I said.
"Maybe she wants to lay you right here on the counter", he replied.
I started thinking, perhaps it would be a good time to be running for my life. Before I could do that, the lady returned.
"Hey, come on, are you in loaf?", she said.
"Why do you keep asking me that?", I said.
"Here, you gave me an extra twenty dollar bill", she said. "You got to be in loaf".
I grabbed the cash and found a seat.
For the next three hours, I proceeded to do Jim Koch proud. In fact, I'm pretty sure I did his father, grandfather and two uncles on his wife's side proud as well. With the entire line of heavenly Kochs bestowing upon me the golden shower of their pride, I went to the gate and boarded the plane.
I had a window seat and sure enough, it turned out to be right slam bang in the geometric center of the wing. There was no way I would be seeing any scenery unless, cross your fingers, the wing were to fall off. But I'd heard disturbing stories about people having faced some difficulty in flying a trans-Atlantic jumbo jetliner with only one intact wing so I uncrossed my fingers.
Continental Airlines has some bizarre food on its Newark-Mumbai flights. It's almost as if the company has no Indian employees and none of its employees have any Indian acquaintances. So when it came to creating a menu for, let's say at a conservative guess, a half-planeful of Indian people, Continental Airlines was nonplussed. So they turned to the Great Gazoogle for advice. Searched for the term "Indian food", randomly paired each search result with an item of American food and voila, there was the menu.
The main course was chicken biryani. With chicken prepared Italian style. There was also salad. With two green chillies that had about as much spice content as a cotton blanket. And there was moong dal. Which appeared to have been sauted in butter with breadcrumbs. And for dessert, there was shrikhand. Followed by fat free plain yogurt. All in all, a strange exotic dinner. No doubt prepared by someone with the head of an Indian, the body of an American and the breasts of Angelina Jolie. I don't know, it's just that studies have concluded that every male thinks about Angelina Jolie's breasts about once every 5 seconds.
I don't know what it is about Indians that makes it extremely difficult for them to stay seated on flights. It's like they are just aching to be liberated from the shackles of relaxed buttock and pain-free lower back. And it's always the guy in front of you. He's either getting up from his seat and looking around, trying to gauge the probability of success of inciting a mass uprising against the pilot's fascist diktat of remaining seated until the fasten seat-belts sign's been turned off, or jabbing his fingers at the LCD, trying to get it to work, even though everybody else's is clearly also showing the same start-up screen. That is why when you have to fart in the plane (and let us not pretend that you don't because that would contradict the very laws of physics), it's a good idea to direct the jet right at the person in front of you. See, you don't know the guy behind you. For all you know, he might be a decent fellow, perhaps even a philanthropist, trying to save the world from AIDS and hunger. He certainly deserves the benefit of doubt. On the other hand, the guy in front of you is definitely a douchebag. He's probably responsible for half the world's AIDS and hunger. So fuck him and let the methane fly.
Despite the unorthodox and slightly nauseating food, I had a great flight. Hey, how could you go wrong with non-stop? Plus, my entire row of seats was unoccupied so I had a considerable amount of leg room to indulge my restless legs syndrome in. And soon, in what appeared to be practically no time whatsoever, the plane was preparing for its final descent, the pilot had turned the fasten seat-belts sign back on and the asshole in front of me was again looking for people to accompany him in playing catch in the aisles.
Mumbai airport was a pleasant surprise. Somebody appears to have finally come to a realization that even though the airport is government property, that in itself does not mandate its resemblance to a government office in appearance. The walls seemed to have been freshly painted, the corridors were lush with carpeting and even the signs requesting travelers not to jump into a cab with a random stranger offering to accompany you to a hotel were far more persuasive, affiliated as they were with an institute of considerably less decrepitude than before.
The other thing I noticed about Mumbai airport is that in order to get to the Baggage Claim from Immigration, everybody and their uncle has to pass through the duty-free store. I guess somebody's been taking lessons from Vegas, eh? This is where sales people accost you and gently explain why, if you were to refrain from purchasing a liter-sized bottle of Chivas Regal for your father, you would be a terrible son and your father would be so ashamed of you as not to include a single item of fakery in his narratives of your exploits to the neighbors. So heck, you purchase two bottles, because the excruciating banality of your life certainly demands fakery in its recounting, plus, they are on sale and come with a free DVD. This DVD contains hilarious real-life footage of people being convinced into purchasing two bottles of Chivas Regal instead of one. Who, for crying out loud, could pass up this offer?
Not you.
And neither could I.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Following Bryson II : The Pinnacle
(continued from here)
As I re-entered the woods on my way to the Pinnacle, the only thing on my mind was big rattlesnakes that moved through leaves. The trail was covered with leaves that were moving. It could have been the wind or it could have been rattlesnakes. Or it could have been rattlesnakes breaking wind. Fuck you, hiker guy, for your well-meaning warnings.
The problem with keeping an eye out for anything while hiking the AT in Pennsylvania is that it is virtually impossible to do so without inflicting grievous bodily injury upon your person. This trail is a fucking rocky mess. It demands intense concentration from you, the hiker, at all times. You cannot withdraw your gaze from the path immediately preceding you even for a split second, because by doing so, you are inviting permanent disability upon your ankles and any other body part that embarks upon a collision course with the ground as a result. Therefore, while you're on the trail, you may not admire the scenery. You may not observe the serene verdancy of the surrounding foliage. You may not even turn around to check if that grunting growling sound that has been following you in close proximity for the past fifteen minutes is an harbinger of doom or merely a benevolent fellow-organism desirous of initiating contact with you with the benign intent of accompanying you in your adventures.
The end result is, on the trail, you turn into a quivering bundle of nerves. Anything your peripheral vision makes out to be an object of even a remotely reptilian nature, be it a twig or your own forearm, spooks you out. Finally, after being startled by a log for the twentieth fucking time, I realized that I needed to have a talk with myself.
"Listen up", I said. "No matter how many times you shit your pants at the sight of a log, if it has been written in the stars, the snakes will still get you. Look up, do you see any stars? No? It means you're safe. So get back to work, chickenshit". I even tried to shame myself by doing the chicken dance. It worked.
"Yes Sir", I said to myself and began to walk again, feeling less terror-stricken.
This feeling lasted until I reached the boulders. Again, those fucking boulders, as far as the eye could see. I thought I was done with the boulders but here they fucking were again. This time it was even worse because snakes in crevices had gone from being just an old wives tale to cold hard reality. Well, there was nothing to do but keep forging ahead. So I forged ahead.
For about twenty minutes or so, I never touched the ground, flying over the tops of boulders like a hovercraft. Finally, I stepped over the last boulder and was back on level ground. I saw a guy approach me on the trail from the opposite direction. He looked like a good old country boy in very unhiker-like clothes. In fact, he looked like he had just finished painting someone's house and having extramarital sex with the home-owner's wife. He accosted me from afar.
"Go Phillies", he cried out to me in a very cheery, fraternal manner.
I realized that I had my bright red Phillies cap on. So I replied with equal enthusiasm saying, "Yeah, Phillies" or something similar, although I might also have said "Yeahhohey". I think all that boulder jumping had caused me to displace my tongue.
On seeing me up-close, he stopped and gave me a curious look. I had seen that look before. In bars during Eagles games, me with my Eagles cap on and my Eagles jersey on, screaming E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES with the rest of the bar crowd, with everybody giving me that same look, thinking, hello, what have we here, an ethnic looking guy cheering for our beloved sports team? Where's he from? He looks like somebody who should be following "soccer" and not football.
It was that very same look.
Still continuing to subject me to close scrutiny, the guy said, "So gonna be a good game today huh? Who are the Phillies playing, the.....", and trailed off. I got his drift. He was giving me a test. A test to prove I really was a Phillies fan. A test to prove I was authorized to wear official Philadelphia Phillies team apparel on my head. But I was ready for him. Bring it on, homie, I said to myself.
"I think they are playing the Marlins today", I said confidently.
"Yeah, yeah, the Marlins", he said pensively. "I wonder who's gonna start today. Probably the new guy, right, Pedro........". He trailed off again.
"Pedro Martinez? Yeah, probab.....", I said and then paused. Hold on. This was a trick question. I mulled it over for a bit.
"Nah, I said. "I don't think they'll start Pedro today", I said.
"And why's that?", asked the guy, feigning ignorance.
I took a deep breath.
"Because before they allow him to start a game, the Phillies will probably need Pedro to pitch a couple of bullpen innings first with an existing good lead. You know, just to get his confidence up before throwing him into the high pressure situation of a starter. Besides, Cole Hamels is due because his last start was five games ago. So no, I don't think Pedro's gonna start today. It's most likely gonna be Hamels"
I had nailed it. I could see it in his eyes. I had passed the legitimacy test. Wishing me a good hike, he waved goodbye and I continued on the trail.
The trail climbed some more along the side of the ridge, until I finally reached Hiker's Mound which my friend from Pulpit Rock had told me about. This is a large mound of rocks on the trail that has been created by hikers. Apparently every time you reach this point on the trail, it is customary for a hiker to add another rock to it. I wished to make my contribution to this structure but no matter how diligently I combed the area, I just could not find a single rock. Hikers before me had swept it clean. I decided to continue on to the Pinnacle and import a rock from there.
To get to the Pinnacle from Hiker's Mound, you need to follow the blue trail (Another blue trail?? Sure, why not.) This isn't really a trail at all and involves more bouncing along more boulders for another fifty feet till you reach the Pinnacle.
The Pinnacle is a bunch of large rocks resting upon the edge of the cliff, standing on top of which allows you to partake some excellent views of the surrounding countryside. Churches, farmhouses, distant hillocks and even a cemetery. Although it was a bit hazy, the view was as pretty as the reviews had made it out to be.
After spending a few minutes enjoying the view, battling the wind, enduring some egregiously sappy love talk from the couples canoodling on the rocks and spotting (what seemed to be) a freshly moulted snake skin on the ground, I decided to embark upon my return trip. I was gonna continue on the AT, which does a sharp hairpin turn at Hiker's mound, and then make a left onto the Furnace Creek Trail (The Blue Trail, yes, another blue trail) that would take me back to the reservoir and the parking lot.
I returned back to Hiker's Mound, added my own rock to it and after spending some time searching for white blazes, began the descent back. This section of the trail was quite broad and ideal for normal walking. On the way, I met a group of hikers who asked me, "Do you know how to get to the yellow trail?"
This time, to be more accurate, I replied, "Yes, it's over there", waving my hands vaguely over my head through an angle of 360 degrees. After conferring amongst themselves, the group chose an arc sector of 15 degrees out of my 360 and started walking in that direction.
The Furnace Creek Trail diverges from the AT at, what my Pulpit Rock friend had called, "The Helipad". The "Helipad" turned out to be a misnomer. It's not like I had expected a fully functional runway, air traffic control tower with a brewpub restaurant at its base with fifty different beers available on draft and pretty barmaids eager to pour you a long cold one, accompanying it with small talk, oh to heck with you, so what if I did?
Anyways, there was no such thing there. The "Helipad" turned out to be an unkempt grassy meadow that suddenly appeared in the middle of the forest. To show my displeasure at being bamboozled, I emptied my bladder right there in the center of the meadow where the "helicopters" would be landing.
The Furnace Creek Trail ran alongside a mountain spring called, I'm assuming, the Furnace Creek, because if not, it would have been a shitty choice of name for the trail. It was lined with gigantic rhododendron bushes and was in general, the perfect trail for a nice leisurely walk. At one point where the trail crossed over the creek, I filled my bottle with fresh spring water, having being informed by online reviewers that the water was perfectly potable and 99% hanta-virus-free. And so it was, and quite delicious too. I realized that it was the first time I had suckled from mother earth's untreated teat.
The trail led down to Hamburg Reservoir, a small artificial lake created by damming the Furnace Creek. A sign on the side of the lake said "No animals allowed in the lake", which was very impressive to me because for the past year and a half, I've been trying to teach the deer in my backyard how to read English, but they still have problems differentiating "dessert" from "desert". The wildlife in this area must have evolved from a different gene pool.
Finally, I walked down the reservoir road to the parking lot and my car. My stats according to my newly acquired pedometer were :
distance walked : 7.2 miles
calories consumed : 950
steps walked : 18,000
survival rate : 100%
All in all, I would call it a successful hike.
As I re-entered the woods on my way to the Pinnacle, the only thing on my mind was big rattlesnakes that moved through leaves. The trail was covered with leaves that were moving. It could have been the wind or it could have been rattlesnakes. Or it could have been rattlesnakes breaking wind. Fuck you, hiker guy, for your well-meaning warnings.
The problem with keeping an eye out for anything while hiking the AT in Pennsylvania is that it is virtually impossible to do so without inflicting grievous bodily injury upon your person. This trail is a fucking rocky mess. It demands intense concentration from you, the hiker, at all times. You cannot withdraw your gaze from the path immediately preceding you even for a split second, because by doing so, you are inviting permanent disability upon your ankles and any other body part that embarks upon a collision course with the ground as a result. Therefore, while you're on the trail, you may not admire the scenery. You may not observe the serene verdancy of the surrounding foliage. You may not even turn around to check if that grunting growling sound that has been following you in close proximity for the past fifteen minutes is an harbinger of doom or merely a benevolent fellow-organism desirous of initiating contact with you with the benign intent of accompanying you in your adventures.
The end result is, on the trail, you turn into a quivering bundle of nerves. Anything your peripheral vision makes out to be an object of even a remotely reptilian nature, be it a twig or your own forearm, spooks you out. Finally, after being startled by a log for the twentieth fucking time, I realized that I needed to have a talk with myself.
"Listen up", I said. "No matter how many times you shit your pants at the sight of a log, if it has been written in the stars, the snakes will still get you. Look up, do you see any stars? No? It means you're safe. So get back to work, chickenshit". I even tried to shame myself by doing the chicken dance. It worked.
"Yes Sir", I said to myself and began to walk again, feeling less terror-stricken.
This feeling lasted until I reached the boulders. Again, those fucking boulders, as far as the eye could see. I thought I was done with the boulders but here they fucking were again. This time it was even worse because snakes in crevices had gone from being just an old wives tale to cold hard reality. Well, there was nothing to do but keep forging ahead. So I forged ahead.
For about twenty minutes or so, I never touched the ground, flying over the tops of boulders like a hovercraft. Finally, I stepped over the last boulder and was back on level ground. I saw a guy approach me on the trail from the opposite direction. He looked like a good old country boy in very unhiker-like clothes. In fact, he looked like he had just finished painting someone's house and having extramarital sex with the home-owner's wife. He accosted me from afar.
"Go Phillies", he cried out to me in a very cheery, fraternal manner.
I realized that I had my bright red Phillies cap on. So I replied with equal enthusiasm saying, "Yeah, Phillies" or something similar, although I might also have said "Yeahhohey". I think all that boulder jumping had caused me to displace my tongue.
On seeing me up-close, he stopped and gave me a curious look. I had seen that look before. In bars during Eagles games, me with my Eagles cap on and my Eagles jersey on, screaming E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES with the rest of the bar crowd, with everybody giving me that same look, thinking, hello, what have we here, an ethnic looking guy cheering for our beloved sports team? Where's he from? He looks like somebody who should be following "soccer" and not football.
It was that very same look.
Still continuing to subject me to close scrutiny, the guy said, "So gonna be a good game today huh? Who are the Phillies playing, the.....", and trailed off. I got his drift. He was giving me a test. A test to prove I really was a Phillies fan. A test to prove I was authorized to wear official Philadelphia Phillies team apparel on my head. But I was ready for him. Bring it on, homie, I said to myself.
"I think they are playing the Marlins today", I said confidently.
"Yeah, yeah, the Marlins", he said pensively. "I wonder who's gonna start today. Probably the new guy, right, Pedro........". He trailed off again.
"Pedro Martinez? Yeah, probab.....", I said and then paused. Hold on. This was a trick question. I mulled it over for a bit.
"Nah, I said. "I don't think they'll start Pedro today", I said.
"And why's that?", asked the guy, feigning ignorance.
I took a deep breath.
"Because before they allow him to start a game, the Phillies will probably need Pedro to pitch a couple of bullpen innings first with an existing good lead. You know, just to get his confidence up before throwing him into the high pressure situation of a starter. Besides, Cole Hamels is due because his last start was five games ago. So no, I don't think Pedro's gonna start today. It's most likely gonna be Hamels"
I had nailed it. I could see it in his eyes. I had passed the legitimacy test. Wishing me a good hike, he waved goodbye and I continued on the trail.
The trail climbed some more along the side of the ridge, until I finally reached Hiker's Mound which my friend from Pulpit Rock had told me about. This is a large mound of rocks on the trail that has been created by hikers. Apparently every time you reach this point on the trail, it is customary for a hiker to add another rock to it. I wished to make my contribution to this structure but no matter how diligently I combed the area, I just could not find a single rock. Hikers before me had swept it clean. I decided to continue on to the Pinnacle and import a rock from there.
To get to the Pinnacle from Hiker's Mound, you need to follow the blue trail (Another blue trail?? Sure, why not.) This isn't really a trail at all and involves more bouncing along more boulders for another fifty feet till you reach the Pinnacle.
The Pinnacle is a bunch of large rocks resting upon the edge of the cliff, standing on top of which allows you to partake some excellent views of the surrounding countryside. Churches, farmhouses, distant hillocks and even a cemetery. Although it was a bit hazy, the view was as pretty as the reviews had made it out to be.
After spending a few minutes enjoying the view, battling the wind, enduring some egregiously sappy love talk from the couples canoodling on the rocks and spotting (what seemed to be) a freshly moulted snake skin on the ground, I decided to embark upon my return trip. I was gonna continue on the AT, which does a sharp hairpin turn at Hiker's mound, and then make a left onto the Furnace Creek Trail (The Blue Trail, yes, another blue trail) that would take me back to the reservoir and the parking lot.
I returned back to Hiker's Mound, added my own rock to it and after spending some time searching for white blazes, began the descent back. This section of the trail was quite broad and ideal for normal walking. On the way, I met a group of hikers who asked me, "Do you know how to get to the yellow trail?"
This time, to be more accurate, I replied, "Yes, it's over there", waving my hands vaguely over my head through an angle of 360 degrees. After conferring amongst themselves, the group chose an arc sector of 15 degrees out of my 360 and started walking in that direction.
The Furnace Creek Trail diverges from the AT at, what my Pulpit Rock friend had called, "The Helipad". The "Helipad" turned out to be a misnomer. It's not like I had expected a fully functional runway, air traffic control tower with a brewpub restaurant at its base with fifty different beers available on draft and pretty barmaids eager to pour you a long cold one, accompanying it with small talk, oh to heck with you, so what if I did?
Anyways, there was no such thing there. The "Helipad" turned out to be an unkempt grassy meadow that suddenly appeared in the middle of the forest. To show my displeasure at being bamboozled, I emptied my bladder right there in the center of the meadow where the "helicopters" would be landing.
The Furnace Creek Trail ran alongside a mountain spring called, I'm assuming, the Furnace Creek, because if not, it would have been a shitty choice of name for the trail. It was lined with gigantic rhododendron bushes and was in general, the perfect trail for a nice leisurely walk. At one point where the trail crossed over the creek, I filled my bottle with fresh spring water, having being informed by online reviewers that the water was perfectly potable and 99% hanta-virus-free. And so it was, and quite delicious too. I realized that it was the first time I had suckled from mother earth's untreated teat.
The trail led down to Hamburg Reservoir, a small artificial lake created by damming the Furnace Creek. A sign on the side of the lake said "No animals allowed in the lake", which was very impressive to me because for the past year and a half, I've been trying to teach the deer in my backyard how to read English, but they still have problems differentiating "dessert" from "desert". The wildlife in this area must have evolved from a different gene pool.
Finally, I walked down the reservoir road to the parking lot and my car. My stats according to my newly acquired pedometer were :
distance walked : 7.2 miles
calories consumed : 950
steps walked : 18,000
survival rate : 100%
All in all, I would call it a successful hike.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Following Bryson II : Pulpit Rock
So there I was, once again at the base of the Blue Mountain Ridge, this time about thirty miles west of Palmerton, near a small lake called Hamburg Reservoir. I was going to hike up the mountain on the Appalachian Trail to a place called "Pulpit Rock" and then push on to "The Pinnacle".
View Pinnacle Hike in a larger map
The Pinnacle is a scenic outlook on the Appalachian Trail that is said to possess some of the finest views the trail has to offer in the state of Pennsylvania. Through careful online research, I managed to uncover the following salient facts with regard to this particular hike.
1.> It usually takes about 3.5 to 4.5 hours to complete the 8.5 mile round trip.
2.> You may encounter copperhead snakes on the trail.
3.> You definitely need lots of water.
4.> You may encounter rattlesnakes on the trail.
5.> If you fail to follow the trail map posted in the parking lot with adequate discipline, you may get lost and find yourself in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
6.> The rattlesnakes that consider this trail their home are of exceptional quality, if what you look for in a rattlesnake is girth and bloodcurdling ferocity.
Armed with these helpful facts, two bottles of water, brand new leather hiking boots and a camera, I drove up to Hamburg Reservoir near the small town of Hamburg, PA, where you can hop on to the AT. To get to the AT from the parking lot, you have to walk uphill along a service road that leads to the reservoir. The AT intersects this road about a half mile up the hill and enters some woods after crossing a stream on a wooden bridge. Heeding the advice of online hiking reviews, I looked for copperheads sunning themselves on the creek stones but I saw none, which wasn't a disaster because I really fucking hate snakes.
I had decided to hike up the AT to the Pinnacle, then descend back down along the Furnace Creek (Blue) trail, which forms a loop to the parking lot. About half a mile into the woods, the Blue trail branched off the AT. Immediately thereafter, the AT began a steep climb up the side of the mountain. After an initial shock to my cardio-pulmonary system during which I aged twenty years within the span of twenty seconds, I settled into a nice rhythm.
About a mile into the hike, I ran across my first fellow hiker. She was twenty yards ahead of me, an amply proportioned woman, also climbing up the trail. As I caught up to her, I saw that she was arguing with somebody on the phone. Just as I passed her, she turned to me and asked me, "Do you know where we are?"
"We are on the Appalachian Trail", I replied, not hugely surprised by her question because she looked like somebody who had just stepped outside to get a cup of coffee and somehow inadvertently managed to end up on the Appalachian Trail.
"I need to get to the blue trail", she replied. "I've been walking all morning, trying to get to the white trail that leads to the blue trail".
"This IS the white trail", I said. "But why are you climbing up? To get to the blue trail, you would have to climb down".
"I climbed up the blue trail and I made a left on to the white trail and now I need to reach the blue trail to climb down to my campground, so I'm climbing up again", she said. "Do you see now?"
"I see", I replied, not seeing at all. "The blue trail meets the white trail at two different locations, the closest of which is a mile down this trail."
"Oh damn", she exclaimed in disgust. "Alright, thanks", she said, turned around and began to walk down.
After marveling for a moment at how anyone could get lost on such a clearly marked trail, I walked on.
A few minutes later, I came to a blue blazed trail branching off the AT to the right. Another blue trail? Perhaps the mysterious, mythical blue trail the woman was looking for?
Now here's my problem and it is a very general problem that I have faced many times in my life. I have a pathological desire to assist mankind through the generous dissemination of my knowledge. The problem is that frequently, I lack knowledge of any kind. In such a situation, I manufacture knowledge through the process of theorizing and deduction and in my defense, there have been numerous occasions when this method of knowledge manufacture has served me well and earned me accolades.
Apparently this wasn't one of those times.
"Fuck", I muttered under my breath because I had just been hit by a severe pang of hiker's conscience. Quickly, I did an about-turn and jogged back down the trail to see if I could find the woman and inform her that I had discovered a blue trail that might be the one she was looking for, but she had disappeared. I never saw her again. They say her spirit still wanders these woods at night, giving unwary hikers false directions in a fake Indian accent.
As I continued to hike up the AT, it continued to get rockier, with more and more boulders appearing on the path. As I mentioned in my previous post, Bill Bryson has called the PA Appalachian Trail a place where hiking boots go to die. After reading his description, my initial impression was that the AT in PA was probably akin to an old age home for footwear, where already decrepit boots would be allowed to die quietly with dignity, catheters being disengaged at regular intervals, culminating with the final unplugging of the dialysis machine.
And my experience on the Delaware Water Gap section of the AT had only served to confirm my hypothesis. After I returned from the hike, my old shoes which were already well past their expiration date, called it a day and kicked the bucket.
But this trail was different. In fact, for this particular section of the AT, a more apt comparison would be to Vietnam. Young, healthy shoes being sent off to battle for a lost cause and be slaughtered like sheep. I felt a deep sadness for my new Timberlands. They were not having the best of times. I could sense their muted suffering through my Dr. Scholl's insole.
It began with the appearance of a few rocks on the path. I snapped a picture, thinking hey, that's cool, so this was what Bryson was talking about. A few steps ahead, these turned into boulders. I snapped another picture, thinking sweet, I am THE MAN for doing this trail alone. And then, the path disappeared entirely, turning into a field of giant rocks, climbing up the side of the mountain like a stairway to hell and identifiable as the Appalachian Trail only by the white blazes painted on trees surrounding them.
My problem wasn't merely with regard to the technical issues involved in climbing up a rocky mountainside. I also knew (again, from online research), that the rattlesnakes of this region, displaying uncommon enterprise, often occupy the empty space between two rocks, staying still for prolonged periods of time and awaiting rodentia or human limb to succumb to gravity and fall in. Therefore, as I jumped from rock to rock, I could almost hear hollow fangs clicking away in anticipation all around my feet.
As I was standing on one of these rocks, trying to catch my breath, my cellphone rang. It was my dad.
"Why are you sending us money?", my dad wanted to know.
"Who else will I send money to?", I replied.
"We don't need your money, we are relatively well-off", replied my dad.
"Dad, I already sent you the money, so donate it to the poor or something", I said.
"Okay, I will send it back to you, then", said my dad.
"Dad, I have money now, I am no longer poor", I said, "But anyways, I'm standing on a rock surrounded by snakes right now so I gotta go, I will call you later, bye" and hung up.
After carefully leaping from rock to rock and making my way up the ridge for another twenty minutes or so, I finally emerged onto a flat area on the edge of a cliff with a nice view of the surrounding countryside. This was probably Pulpit Rock. I confirmed my suspicion by asking two women lounging around on a couple of flat rocks at the edge of the precipice. One of them was lying on her stomach, peering through binoculars at the birds of prey circling the cliffs around us.
"Is this Pulpit Rock?", I asked.
"Yes, it is", the non-birdwatcher replied. I walked up to the edge of the cliff to take pictures. Down in the valley at a distance, I could vaguely make out the "Blue Rocks", a boulder field supposedly deposited there by glaciers during the last ice age.
The woman who had replied to my question got up from her roost and at the same time, a skinny guy in well-worn hiking attire emerged from the trail. He immediately walked up to the rock the woman had been sitting on, carefully scrutinized it and then broke out in smiles as if he had just spotted an old friend.
"There it is", he said, "There's usually at least one in there".
"Where is what?", I asked him, puzzled.
"A copperhead", he replied. "It's coiled up inside the crack between these rocks you ladies are sitting on."
This revelation caused the birdwatching lady to temporarily suspend her ornithological activities in favor of leaping to her feet and saying, "AaaaA. Where?" I have never seen anyone transfer body weight from belly to foot with such agility.
The man pointed to the crevice between the two rocks. I stepped onto the ledge at the very edge of the cliff to spot the serpent. A sudden attack of vertigo hit me. Carefully, I backed off and tried to get to it from another angle. As I raised my camera and moved my hand towards the crevice to take a picture, I asked the guy, "Where is it"?
"Stop right there", he said. I froze.
"What?", I said.
"There's one right underneath your hand", he said.
I looked closely at the crevice my hand was passing over and sure enough, right there among the leaves was a curled up copperhead. It was quite difficult to spot due to its amazingly camouflaged skin. There were two of these snakes, in the very same crevice.
"Sometimes there are so many in there that they get stacked up on each other", said the guy. He had obviously made a career out of studying the relaxing habits of Appalachian Trail copperheads.
"That's nice", I said, thinking otherwise. "Are they venomous?".
"Yeah", he replied. "Also, the babies are more dangerous because they keep biting and inject more venom than the adults."
I decided never to hand-feed a baby copperhead. Sure they are all cute and scaly and all, but on the whole, it's just not worth the risk.
"We've been sitting here for a while now", said one of the women. "We never knew it was in there."
"You were lucky you didn't drop anything into the crack and try to retrieve it", I said.
"I know", said the woman, "My water bottle was right there".
After taking a number of copperhead pictures, I put my camera away.
"Anyone going to the Pinnacle?", asked Hiker Guy.
"Yeah, I am", I replied, "Why?"
"Watch out for rattlesnakes", he said. "People have seen big ones among the rocks there".
"B...B?", I said.
"Excuse me?", he said.
"I said B...B", I explained. "I was actually trying to say 'B..B..Big?' in a terrified voice."
"Yeah", he replied, "You might also run across them on the trail. I saw one the other day, moving through the leaves. Just make sure you keep an eye out for them."
And so, after taking some more pictures of the view from Pulpit Rock, I took my leave of these good folks and headed out towards the Pinnacle.
(continued here)
View Pinnacle Hike in a larger map
The Pinnacle is a scenic outlook on the Appalachian Trail that is said to possess some of the finest views the trail has to offer in the state of Pennsylvania. Through careful online research, I managed to uncover the following salient facts with regard to this particular hike.
1.> It usually takes about 3.5 to 4.5 hours to complete the 8.5 mile round trip.
2.> You may encounter copperhead snakes on the trail.
3.> You definitely need lots of water.
4.> You may encounter rattlesnakes on the trail.
5.> If you fail to follow the trail map posted in the parking lot with adequate discipline, you may get lost and find yourself in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
6.> The rattlesnakes that consider this trail their home are of exceptional quality, if what you look for in a rattlesnake is girth and bloodcurdling ferocity.
Armed with these helpful facts, two bottles of water, brand new leather hiking boots and a camera, I drove up to Hamburg Reservoir near the small town of Hamburg, PA, where you can hop on to the AT. To get to the AT from the parking lot, you have to walk uphill along a service road that leads to the reservoir. The AT intersects this road about a half mile up the hill and enters some woods after crossing a stream on a wooden bridge. Heeding the advice of online hiking reviews, I looked for copperheads sunning themselves on the creek stones but I saw none, which wasn't a disaster because I really fucking hate snakes.
I had decided to hike up the AT to the Pinnacle, then descend back down along the Furnace Creek (Blue) trail, which forms a loop to the parking lot. About half a mile into the woods, the Blue trail branched off the AT. Immediately thereafter, the AT began a steep climb up the side of the mountain. After an initial shock to my cardio-pulmonary system during which I aged twenty years within the span of twenty seconds, I settled into a nice rhythm.
About a mile into the hike, I ran across my first fellow hiker. She was twenty yards ahead of me, an amply proportioned woman, also climbing up the trail. As I caught up to her, I saw that she was arguing with somebody on the phone. Just as I passed her, she turned to me and asked me, "Do you know where we are?"
"We are on the Appalachian Trail", I replied, not hugely surprised by her question because she looked like somebody who had just stepped outside to get a cup of coffee and somehow inadvertently managed to end up on the Appalachian Trail.
"I need to get to the blue trail", she replied. "I've been walking all morning, trying to get to the white trail that leads to the blue trail".
"This IS the white trail", I said. "But why are you climbing up? To get to the blue trail, you would have to climb down".
"I climbed up the blue trail and I made a left on to the white trail and now I need to reach the blue trail to climb down to my campground, so I'm climbing up again", she said. "Do you see now?"
"I see", I replied, not seeing at all. "The blue trail meets the white trail at two different locations, the closest of which is a mile down this trail."
"Oh damn", she exclaimed in disgust. "Alright, thanks", she said, turned around and began to walk down.
After marveling for a moment at how anyone could get lost on such a clearly marked trail, I walked on.
A few minutes later, I came to a blue blazed trail branching off the AT to the right. Another blue trail? Perhaps the mysterious, mythical blue trail the woman was looking for?
Now here's my problem and it is a very general problem that I have faced many times in my life. I have a pathological desire to assist mankind through the generous dissemination of my knowledge. The problem is that frequently, I lack knowledge of any kind. In such a situation, I manufacture knowledge through the process of theorizing and deduction and in my defense, there have been numerous occasions when this method of knowledge manufacture has served me well and earned me accolades.
Apparently this wasn't one of those times.
"Fuck", I muttered under my breath because I had just been hit by a severe pang of hiker's conscience. Quickly, I did an about-turn and jogged back down the trail to see if I could find the woman and inform her that I had discovered a blue trail that might be the one she was looking for, but she had disappeared. I never saw her again. They say her spirit still wanders these woods at night, giving unwary hikers false directions in a fake Indian accent.
As I continued to hike up the AT, it continued to get rockier, with more and more boulders appearing on the path. As I mentioned in my previous post, Bill Bryson has called the PA Appalachian Trail a place where hiking boots go to die. After reading his description, my initial impression was that the AT in PA was probably akin to an old age home for footwear, where already decrepit boots would be allowed to die quietly with dignity, catheters being disengaged at regular intervals, culminating with the final unplugging of the dialysis machine.
And my experience on the Delaware Water Gap section of the AT had only served to confirm my hypothesis. After I returned from the hike, my old shoes which were already well past their expiration date, called it a day and kicked the bucket.
But this trail was different. In fact, for this particular section of the AT, a more apt comparison would be to Vietnam. Young, healthy shoes being sent off to battle for a lost cause and be slaughtered like sheep. I felt a deep sadness for my new Timberlands. They were not having the best of times. I could sense their muted suffering through my Dr. Scholl's insole.
It began with the appearance of a few rocks on the path. I snapped a picture, thinking hey, that's cool, so this was what Bryson was talking about. A few steps ahead, these turned into boulders. I snapped another picture, thinking sweet, I am THE MAN for doing this trail alone. And then, the path disappeared entirely, turning into a field of giant rocks, climbing up the side of the mountain like a stairway to hell and identifiable as the Appalachian Trail only by the white blazes painted on trees surrounding them.
My problem wasn't merely with regard to the technical issues involved in climbing up a rocky mountainside. I also knew (again, from online research), that the rattlesnakes of this region, displaying uncommon enterprise, often occupy the empty space between two rocks, staying still for prolonged periods of time and awaiting rodentia or human limb to succumb to gravity and fall in. Therefore, as I jumped from rock to rock, I could almost hear hollow fangs clicking away in anticipation all around my feet.
As I was standing on one of these rocks, trying to catch my breath, my cellphone rang. It was my dad.
"Why are you sending us money?", my dad wanted to know.
"Who else will I send money to?", I replied.
"We don't need your money, we are relatively well-off", replied my dad.
"Dad, I already sent you the money, so donate it to the poor or something", I said.
"Okay, I will send it back to you, then", said my dad.
"Dad, I have money now, I am no longer poor", I said, "But anyways, I'm standing on a rock surrounded by snakes right now so I gotta go, I will call you later, bye" and hung up.
After carefully leaping from rock to rock and making my way up the ridge for another twenty minutes or so, I finally emerged onto a flat area on the edge of a cliff with a nice view of the surrounding countryside. This was probably Pulpit Rock. I confirmed my suspicion by asking two women lounging around on a couple of flat rocks at the edge of the precipice. One of them was lying on her stomach, peering through binoculars at the birds of prey circling the cliffs around us.
"Is this Pulpit Rock?", I asked.
"Yes, it is", the non-birdwatcher replied. I walked up to the edge of the cliff to take pictures. Down in the valley at a distance, I could vaguely make out the "Blue Rocks", a boulder field supposedly deposited there by glaciers during the last ice age.
The woman who had replied to my question got up from her roost and at the same time, a skinny guy in well-worn hiking attire emerged from the trail. He immediately walked up to the rock the woman had been sitting on, carefully scrutinized it and then broke out in smiles as if he had just spotted an old friend.
"There it is", he said, "There's usually at least one in there".
"Where is what?", I asked him, puzzled.
"A copperhead", he replied. "It's coiled up inside the crack between these rocks you ladies are sitting on."
This revelation caused the birdwatching lady to temporarily suspend her ornithological activities in favor of leaping to her feet and saying, "AaaaA. Where?" I have never seen anyone transfer body weight from belly to foot with such agility.
The man pointed to the crevice between the two rocks. I stepped onto the ledge at the very edge of the cliff to spot the serpent. A sudden attack of vertigo hit me. Carefully, I backed off and tried to get to it from another angle. As I raised my camera and moved my hand towards the crevice to take a picture, I asked the guy, "Where is it"?
"Stop right there", he said. I froze.
"What?", I said.
"There's one right underneath your hand", he said.
I looked closely at the crevice my hand was passing over and sure enough, right there among the leaves was a curled up copperhead. It was quite difficult to spot due to its amazingly camouflaged skin. There were two of these snakes, in the very same crevice.
"Sometimes there are so many in there that they get stacked up on each other", said the guy. He had obviously made a career out of studying the relaxing habits of Appalachian Trail copperheads.
"That's nice", I said, thinking otherwise. "Are they venomous?".
"Yeah", he replied. "Also, the babies are more dangerous because they keep biting and inject more venom than the adults."
I decided never to hand-feed a baby copperhead. Sure they are all cute and scaly and all, but on the whole, it's just not worth the risk.
"We've been sitting here for a while now", said one of the women. "We never knew it was in there."
"You were lucky you didn't drop anything into the crack and try to retrieve it", I said.
"I know", said the woman, "My water bottle was right there".
After taking a number of copperhead pictures, I put my camera away.
"Anyone going to the Pinnacle?", asked Hiker Guy.
"Yeah, I am", I replied, "Why?"
"Watch out for rattlesnakes", he said. "People have seen big ones among the rocks there".
"B...B?", I said.
"Excuse me?", he said.
"I said B...B", I explained. "I was actually trying to say 'B..B..Big?' in a terrified voice."
"Yeah", he replied, "You might also run across them on the trail. I saw one the other day, moving through the leaves. Just make sure you keep an eye out for them."
And so, after taking some more pictures of the view from Pulpit Rock, I took my leave of these good folks and headed out towards the Pinnacle.
(continued here)
Friday, July 31, 2009
Following Bryson
A couple of months ago, I read Bill Bryson's awesomely funny book "A walk in the woods" for the very first time, in which he describes his attempt to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian Trail, or, as lazy folks like to call it, the "AT", is a 2200 mile long north-south hiking trail that runs throughout the length of the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States. The AT, along with the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) of the Western Mountains and the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) of the Rockies form the Holy Trinity (HTNT) for long-distance hikers (people who have way too much time on their hands, or SOBs).
After reading this book, I made the spontaneous life-changing decision of dedicating the remainder of my time on earth to hiking the AT and retracing Mr Bryson's journey along this trail. That decision turned out to have a very limited lifespan, the end of which, curiously enough, coincided with my wife coming to know about it. Only after changing it through the addition of various legal amendments such as, "only on weekends when nothing else is planned" and "subject to absolute spousal veto that may not be appealed" was I able to revive it and get it approved.
A significant chunk of the AT passes through Pennsylvania. Bryson has not been too kind to Pennsylvania in his book. As he describes it (or cites someone else describing it, I forget which), the Pennsylvanian portion of the Appalachian trail is where hiking boots go to die. And I realized the truth of this statement when I did the Delaware Water Gap section of the AT some weeks ago. My right shoe passed away soon after, leaving behind a widowed left shoe, a couple of orphaned shoelaces and a large credit card debt that I'm still paying off. I had no idea the fucker was living beyond his means.
So last week, continuing on my mission, I decided to do a section of the AT that lay closest to me. Through a Google maps research session, I discovered that there was an AT trail-head with parking facilities about 60 miles from here where it crosses PA Highway 309 on the summit of the Blue Mountain Ridge.
View Larger Map
As we were pulling into the trail-head parking lot, I spotted the white blazed trail entering the woods from the highway. I showed it to my wife.
"Look, there's the trail", I said.
My wife, after observing it through the window, replied, "That's the trail?"
"Yes, there it is", I replied.
"But it's going into the woods", said my wife. "You didn't tell me we would be hiking in the woods. They look scary".
I realized that I had been somewhat secretive about the exact location of our hiking trip. I also realized that I had made a good call.
"What's wrong with hiking in the woods", I said. "Where else would you hike?"
"I don't know, a mall?" said my wife. I observed her closely to detect any signs of intended humor. I found none.
"Ah, don't worry", I said. "It's just trees. Luckily for us, the woods in this part of America lack any major predatory species, other than the black bear".
My wife, who was just about to place a foot outside the car, pulled it back in. "Bears?"
"Oh come on, the possibility of us happening upon a bear is extremely small", I said. I tried to mentally wish away the sign I had seen by the side of the highway at the base of the mountain that said "Bear crossing, next two miles". There, no more sign. It wasn't there anymore.
I had actually decided to hike the AT in the opposite direction, going towards Hawk Mountain, so we drove around, looking for the other trail-head. At the top of Blue Mountain Ridge, just across the AT trail-head lies the Blue Mountain Summit restaurant. I decided that I would have a beer there after the hike. Perhaps watch the Phillies game. It was then that I spotted white blazes descending down the mountainside on the other side of the highway.
"There, that's the side of the trail I want to do", I said to my wife.
"But we'll have to climb back up. How about we do the other section across the road that doesn't involve any climbing?", said my wife in a tone that seemed to suggest a distaste for gravity-opposing activities.
"Okay", I said. "Hey, look, an apple tree". We appeared to be parked right under an apple tree. "Do you want to pick a few apples?", I said, knowing through scholarly research that apple-picking is an activity women seem to harbor an inexplicable fondness for.
"Sure, why not", she replied, "The bear's gonna be hungry, right?"
We drove to the trail head parking lot without picking any apples. Finally managing to leave the car before sunset, we entered the woods. It was a nice day, not too hot, not too cold and not wet at all. The trail, in its initial section, was very narrow and I was a bit apprehensive because I had come to know from this guy on the internet that this section of the trail was pretty well-stocked with rattlesnakes. "Large" ones, he gushes on his website with considerable enthusiasm. Luckily, there were very few rocks on the trail, which rattlers are known to hide under. Nevertheless, I was happy when the narrow trail joined another larger, better maintained trail.
The AT travels along the top of Blue Mountain Ridge through dense woods. Even though you are about 1200 feet above sea level, there are no scenic views of the valley below simply because you are constantly surrounded by trees. Nevertheless, it was a great hike with the woods smelling flowery fresh and the air slightly muggy but replete with summer fragrance.
The trail was heavily populated with mushrooms. Lots of different varieties and a whole lot of different colors. My wife was mesmerized by them. Often, she would walk all the way back just to take another look at one of her favorite mushrooms that she had passed on the trail. Sometimes she couldn't find it, in which case we would spend a few minutes looking for it. Blueberry bushes were abundant as well, although blessed with very few berries. However, we did manage to snag a few. Even though I was pretty sure the animals that left those berries untouched had a very good reason for doing so.
We passed a number of places on the trail where thru-hikers had obviously camped and enjoyed a roaring campfire, although AT rules strictly forbid it. Bill Bryson never mentions starting any campfires in his book, although he did use a propane stove for cooking his noodles that were a dinner staple during his hike.
After the initial anti-bear remarks, my wife did not appear to be showing any significant bear-anxiety on the trail. I was pretty impressed. She had either lost all of her fear or was doing a good job of hiding it from me, both of which I found to be accomplishments of a highly commendable nature.
"Aren't you afraid of bears anymore?", I asked her as we walked along the path.
"Actually, I'm terrified. But this stick is providing me with a little bit of confidence", she replied.
I looked at the stick she was holding. During ancient times, in the absence of warming massage gels and edible lingerie, our forefathers would have used a comparable sized stick to tickle our foremothers as an act of foreplay. But I did my part in urging her confidence skyward.
"Good, I'll stay behind you then", I said, also expressing a hope that if a bear should happen upon us at the same time as an attractive mushroom, first preference kindly be given to bear destruction rather than mushroom inspection. I then pulled back, now wishing I had eyes in the back of my head. On the way back, we passed a dung-covered stone on the trail. I expertly analyzed it to be of ursine origin. Look, berries, I said. It means a bear did this. We spent about five minutes staring at and marveling over supposed bear shit. Then, we moved on.
On the way back, we passed a female hiker impressively equipped with hiking poles, correct hiking attire and humongous backpack. As she passed us, I asked her, "Hiking thru?" She stopped, looked back, smiled and confirmed my suspicion by saying yes. I said all the best, hope you make it to the end. She laughed, thanked me and moved on. Apparently less than 25% of thru-hikers complete the 2200 mile long trail. I'm hoping I did my bit to add to that number.
After we made it back to the parking lot, I decided to cross highway 309 in order to check out the southbound side of the trail. It turned out to be a highly dangerous place to test your road-crossing skills. For one, I don't think anyone's even aware that the AT crosses the highway at that spot. Also, because it's on the summit of a mountain ridge, cars in both directions, having made the slow climb up the ridge, are now looking forward to speeding all the way down. Nevertheless, having made it to the opposite side of the road in one piece, I looked down at the southbound trail. This section appeared to have more possibilities with regard to scenic views and so, I decided that I would return someday soon and do this section of the trail as well.
Bill Bryson recounts an amusing anecdote during his Pennsylvania AT hike. He traveled to a city called Palmerton, which is just off the trail, more famous for being a US government superfund site, which appears to be code for "ecologically super-devastated". Apparently an old zinc smelting facility, located at the base of the mountain has fucked up the area soil to such a horrible extent that the entire north-facing slope of the mountain is now defoliated, allowing nothing to grow there anymore. And considering how lushly forested the rest of the ridge is, I can see why Bryson would have believed such a place to be worth taking a gander at.
So Bryson appears to have walked onto the property of this zinc facility, and just as he was gazing up at the devastated mountain, a guard walked up to him and asked him what he thought he was doing, trespassing on the property. Bryson's reply of being out of zinc appeared to have infuriated him and after some more humorous back and forth, was just about to arrest him when Bryson was saved by the guard's supervisor appearing on the scene and directing him to the nearest AT trail-head.
Since I was intent upon retracing Bryson's steps, I thought we should drive the 14 miles to Palmerton as well and take a look at the famous treeless slopes of Blue Mountain. It turned out to be a gorgeous drive along PA Route 4024 West along the southern base of the ridge. The road passes through woods, farms, meadows and tiny villages while the dark green mass of Blue Mountain Ridge looms constantly to your left.
Palmerton is an average American town with a wide main street that is mostly devoid of humanity and lined with shops that, from the outside, offer very few hints as to the possibility of being occupied by humans on the inside.
As I drove down the main street, I was looking for this famous barren mountain slope Bryson speaks of, but I just couldn't see it. To the left I could see some strange shaped rock formations on top of a hill, which I pointed out to my wife.
"Look, rocks. Over on that hill", I said.
"Why are you showing me rocks?", she replied.
"I don't know, this could be the barren hillside Bryson was talking about so I don't want you to miss it", I said.
"Alright then, I see them, thank you", she said.
I was still skeptical that those rocks were what Bryson was talking about so I drove on some more. Finally, a large shabby evil-looking factory building came up to our right and a signpost indeed confirmed that it was a zinc recycling plant.
But there was no barren mountain slope. Bryson traveled here in 1996 or so. During the ensuing decade and a half, the mountain soil appears to have shedded all its zinc and tourist potential in favor of luscious green grass. It certainly wasn't wooded like the rest of the ridge, but it didn't look substantially toxic either. I have a feeling that the factory guard today would be much less averse to letting people gawk at his mountain than he had been in the 1990s. But anyways, I wasn't interested in finding out. Disappointed at all the greenery, I turned around and began the long drive home.
Coming up next on the "Following Bryson" tour, Centralia, PA.
After reading this book, I made the spontaneous life-changing decision of dedicating the remainder of my time on earth to hiking the AT and retracing Mr Bryson's journey along this trail. That decision turned out to have a very limited lifespan, the end of which, curiously enough, coincided with my wife coming to know about it. Only after changing it through the addition of various legal amendments such as, "only on weekends when nothing else is planned" and "subject to absolute spousal veto that may not be appealed" was I able to revive it and get it approved.
A significant chunk of the AT passes through Pennsylvania. Bryson has not been too kind to Pennsylvania in his book. As he describes it (or cites someone else describing it, I forget which), the Pennsylvanian portion of the Appalachian trail is where hiking boots go to die. And I realized the truth of this statement when I did the Delaware Water Gap section of the AT some weeks ago. My right shoe passed away soon after, leaving behind a widowed left shoe, a couple of orphaned shoelaces and a large credit card debt that I'm still paying off. I had no idea the fucker was living beyond his means.
So last week, continuing on my mission, I decided to do a section of the AT that lay closest to me. Through a Google maps research session, I discovered that there was an AT trail-head with parking facilities about 60 miles from here where it crosses PA Highway 309 on the summit of the Blue Mountain Ridge.
View Larger Map
As we were pulling into the trail-head parking lot, I spotted the white blazed trail entering the woods from the highway. I showed it to my wife.
"Look, there's the trail", I said.
My wife, after observing it through the window, replied, "That's the trail?"
"Yes, there it is", I replied.
"But it's going into the woods", said my wife. "You didn't tell me we would be hiking in the woods. They look scary".
I realized that I had been somewhat secretive about the exact location of our hiking trip. I also realized that I had made a good call.
"What's wrong with hiking in the woods", I said. "Where else would you hike?"
"I don't know, a mall?" said my wife. I observed her closely to detect any signs of intended humor. I found none.
"Ah, don't worry", I said. "It's just trees. Luckily for us, the woods in this part of America lack any major predatory species, other than the black bear".
My wife, who was just about to place a foot outside the car, pulled it back in. "Bears?"
"Oh come on, the possibility of us happening upon a bear is extremely small", I said. I tried to mentally wish away the sign I had seen by the side of the highway at the base of the mountain that said "Bear crossing, next two miles". There, no more sign. It wasn't there anymore.
I had actually decided to hike the AT in the opposite direction, going towards Hawk Mountain, so we drove around, looking for the other trail-head. At the top of Blue Mountain Ridge, just across the AT trail-head lies the Blue Mountain Summit restaurant. I decided that I would have a beer there after the hike. Perhaps watch the Phillies game. It was then that I spotted white blazes descending down the mountainside on the other side of the highway.
"There, that's the side of the trail I want to do", I said to my wife.
"But we'll have to climb back up. How about we do the other section across the road that doesn't involve any climbing?", said my wife in a tone that seemed to suggest a distaste for gravity-opposing activities.
"Okay", I said. "Hey, look, an apple tree". We appeared to be parked right under an apple tree. "Do you want to pick a few apples?", I said, knowing through scholarly research that apple-picking is an activity women seem to harbor an inexplicable fondness for.
"Sure, why not", she replied, "The bear's gonna be hungry, right?"
We drove to the trail head parking lot without picking any apples. Finally managing to leave the car before sunset, we entered the woods. It was a nice day, not too hot, not too cold and not wet at all. The trail, in its initial section, was very narrow and I was a bit apprehensive because I had come to know from this guy on the internet that this section of the trail was pretty well-stocked with rattlesnakes. "Large" ones, he gushes on his website with considerable enthusiasm. Luckily, there were very few rocks on the trail, which rattlers are known to hide under. Nevertheless, I was happy when the narrow trail joined another larger, better maintained trail.
The AT travels along the top of Blue Mountain Ridge through dense woods. Even though you are about 1200 feet above sea level, there are no scenic views of the valley below simply because you are constantly surrounded by trees. Nevertheless, it was a great hike with the woods smelling flowery fresh and the air slightly muggy but replete with summer fragrance.
The trail was heavily populated with mushrooms. Lots of different varieties and a whole lot of different colors. My wife was mesmerized by them. Often, she would walk all the way back just to take another look at one of her favorite mushrooms that she had passed on the trail. Sometimes she couldn't find it, in which case we would spend a few minutes looking for it. Blueberry bushes were abundant as well, although blessed with very few berries. However, we did manage to snag a few. Even though I was pretty sure the animals that left those berries untouched had a very good reason for doing so.
We passed a number of places on the trail where thru-hikers had obviously camped and enjoyed a roaring campfire, although AT rules strictly forbid it. Bill Bryson never mentions starting any campfires in his book, although he did use a propane stove for cooking his noodles that were a dinner staple during his hike.
After the initial anti-bear remarks, my wife did not appear to be showing any significant bear-anxiety on the trail. I was pretty impressed. She had either lost all of her fear or was doing a good job of hiding it from me, both of which I found to be accomplishments of a highly commendable nature.
"Aren't you afraid of bears anymore?", I asked her as we walked along the path.
"Actually, I'm terrified. But this stick is providing me with a little bit of confidence", she replied.
I looked at the stick she was holding. During ancient times, in the absence of warming massage gels and edible lingerie, our forefathers would have used a comparable sized stick to tickle our foremothers as an act of foreplay. But I did my part in urging her confidence skyward.
"Good, I'll stay behind you then", I said, also expressing a hope that if a bear should happen upon us at the same time as an attractive mushroom, first preference kindly be given to bear destruction rather than mushroom inspection. I then pulled back, now wishing I had eyes in the back of my head. On the way back, we passed a dung-covered stone on the trail. I expertly analyzed it to be of ursine origin. Look, berries, I said. It means a bear did this. We spent about five minutes staring at and marveling over supposed bear shit. Then, we moved on.
On the way back, we passed a female hiker impressively equipped with hiking poles, correct hiking attire and humongous backpack. As she passed us, I asked her, "Hiking thru?" She stopped, looked back, smiled and confirmed my suspicion by saying yes. I said all the best, hope you make it to the end. She laughed, thanked me and moved on. Apparently less than 25% of thru-hikers complete the 2200 mile long trail. I'm hoping I did my bit to add to that number.
After we made it back to the parking lot, I decided to cross highway 309 in order to check out the southbound side of the trail. It turned out to be a highly dangerous place to test your road-crossing skills. For one, I don't think anyone's even aware that the AT crosses the highway at that spot. Also, because it's on the summit of a mountain ridge, cars in both directions, having made the slow climb up the ridge, are now looking forward to speeding all the way down. Nevertheless, having made it to the opposite side of the road in one piece, I looked down at the southbound trail. This section appeared to have more possibilities with regard to scenic views and so, I decided that I would return someday soon and do this section of the trail as well.
Bill Bryson recounts an amusing anecdote during his Pennsylvania AT hike. He traveled to a city called Palmerton, which is just off the trail, more famous for being a US government superfund site, which appears to be code for "ecologically super-devastated". Apparently an old zinc smelting facility, located at the base of the mountain has fucked up the area soil to such a horrible extent that the entire north-facing slope of the mountain is now defoliated, allowing nothing to grow there anymore. And considering how lushly forested the rest of the ridge is, I can see why Bryson would have believed such a place to be worth taking a gander at.
So Bryson appears to have walked onto the property of this zinc facility, and just as he was gazing up at the devastated mountain, a guard walked up to him and asked him what he thought he was doing, trespassing on the property. Bryson's reply of being out of zinc appeared to have infuriated him and after some more humorous back and forth, was just about to arrest him when Bryson was saved by the guard's supervisor appearing on the scene and directing him to the nearest AT trail-head.
Since I was intent upon retracing Bryson's steps, I thought we should drive the 14 miles to Palmerton as well and take a look at the famous treeless slopes of Blue Mountain. It turned out to be a gorgeous drive along PA Route 4024 West along the southern base of the ridge. The road passes through woods, farms, meadows and tiny villages while the dark green mass of Blue Mountain Ridge looms constantly to your left.
Palmerton is an average American town with a wide main street that is mostly devoid of humanity and lined with shops that, from the outside, offer very few hints as to the possibility of being occupied by humans on the inside.
As I drove down the main street, I was looking for this famous barren mountain slope Bryson speaks of, but I just couldn't see it. To the left I could see some strange shaped rock formations on top of a hill, which I pointed out to my wife.
"Look, rocks. Over on that hill", I said.
"Why are you showing me rocks?", she replied.
"I don't know, this could be the barren hillside Bryson was talking about so I don't want you to miss it", I said.
"Alright then, I see them, thank you", she said.
I was still skeptical that those rocks were what Bryson was talking about so I drove on some more. Finally, a large shabby evil-looking factory building came up to our right and a signpost indeed confirmed that it was a zinc recycling plant.
But there was no barren mountain slope. Bryson traveled here in 1996 or so. During the ensuing decade and a half, the mountain soil appears to have shedded all its zinc and tourist potential in favor of luscious green grass. It certainly wasn't wooded like the rest of the ridge, but it didn't look substantially toxic either. I have a feeling that the factory guard today would be much less averse to letting people gawk at his mountain than he had been in the 1990s. But anyways, I wasn't interested in finding out. Disappointed at all the greenery, I turned around and began the long drive home.
Coming up next on the "Following Bryson" tour, Centralia, PA.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Roo
I went to this bar today, the Silver Ostrich Pub, just to see what people looked like since I haven't seen people for a while. I was just gonna get a beer and fuck off since the Weather Channel told me that everything that was made of water was supposedly going to turn into ice by 10:00 pm including the road and the rodentia. So I quickly ordered a beer and they asked me, Sir, do you need a menu, and I said sure, because, hey why not look at the menu while I was drinking. So I looked at the menu for a while and the waitress came over and asked me if I was ready to order and I was about to say no, I did not wish for food, but that is when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw this phrase on the menu that said, "Sauted Kangaroo in Dijon sauce" and I said to myself, listen Mac, let's be honest, with your fast fading age and the relatively low life expectancy of people who drink and drive on PA highway 309, do you really think you're gonna find yourself down under at any point in the future?
And predictably, the answer was no. So, I grabbed this opportunity to taste the roo. Yes yes, I am ready to order, said I, I want the roo, the roo with the dijon. However, I have a question : Is this actually the roo or just imitation roo, you know, like the flesh of the muskrat infused with roo pheromones? No, I was assured, it was indeed authentic roo. Bring it on, I said. Let us feast.
Eventually the roo came out smothered in brown dijon and shredded lettuce. I severed one of the roo pieces with the aid of a steak knife that I was provided and hauled into it. Let me say this right off the bat. The roo did not guide me to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The roo was okay. It was deftly cooked and was bereft of gut and gristle. However, that was the only kind thing that could be said about it. It had a gamy fishy taste that was more smell than taste. Perhaps it was the culinary crew of the Silver Ostrich pub that was more to blame than the deliciousness of the roo. But basically what I am saying is this : If you have a choice between tasting the roo on PA 309 or traveling to Australia, please choose the latter. I am sure the roo is tastier down under.
And predictably, the answer was no. So, I grabbed this opportunity to taste the roo. Yes yes, I am ready to order, said I, I want the roo, the roo with the dijon. However, I have a question : Is this actually the roo or just imitation roo, you know, like the flesh of the muskrat infused with roo pheromones? No, I was assured, it was indeed authentic roo. Bring it on, I said. Let us feast.
Eventually the roo came out smothered in brown dijon and shredded lettuce. I severed one of the roo pieces with the aid of a steak knife that I was provided and hauled into it. Let me say this right off the bat. The roo did not guide me to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The roo was okay. It was deftly cooked and was bereft of gut and gristle. However, that was the only kind thing that could be said about it. It had a gamy fishy taste that was more smell than taste. Perhaps it was the culinary crew of the Silver Ostrich pub that was more to blame than the deliciousness of the roo. But basically what I am saying is this : If you have a choice between tasting the roo on PA 309 or traveling to Australia, please choose the latter. I am sure the roo is tastier down under.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Vegas
I am back from Vegas. This was my third trip there. We had lots of fun and frolic. Luckily we didn't have time to slot a lot of machines and that is why you are hearing the sounds of casino owners weeping. Another is outsourcing the gambling to Bangalore. I didn't win anything this time around. During our last trip we lost a lot of money and when we were waiting at the airport to catch our flight back, my wife decided to go for a final attempt at the airport slot machines. She won 330 dollars. They had to give the machine first aid. By the way, I discovered that they don't allow you to insert quarters inside slot machines nowadays. I guess slot machines developed some self-respect.
During this trip, we didn't spend a lot of time in the casinos. Instead, we visited the Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks. We rented a Chrysler 300 car which should have been better than my Volkswagen Jetta but wasn't. The speed limit in Nevada is 75 mph. It made me happy and I shed a tear for my own state's ubiquitous 55. But the highlight of our trip was our final night spent in Caesar's Palace. Something happened somewhere in somebody's brain and instead of an ordinary room, we were given a suite. It consisted of :
a.> 1 living room
b.> 2 bedrooms
c.> 4 bathrooms
d.> jacuzzi with massage jets
e.> 5 flat screen HD television sets.
f.> 3 different views of the Strip.
g.> Complimentary bag of cashews.
Okay I was exaggerating, I had to pay for the cashews. But everything else is true.
I think the reason behind this benevolence was the intense sentimentalization of the guy at the reception desk due to the fact that we were both from Pennsylvania. And luckily, when he said he was from Pittsburgh, I did not say oh, I thought you said you were from Pennsylvania ha ha. Also, when he said are you Indian, my mentor is Indian, I did not say really, what a coincidence, my mentor is American. Due to all these non-sayings of mine, we received the suite, thus proving once and for all, that if ever I feel like saying anything, it should be best left unsaid.
The Grand Canyon was quite windy. I offered her my Philadelphia Eagles cap and she accepted it with dignity and ferocity. The bus driver was probably a Republican because he kept taking pot shots at Hillary Clinton from the airport to the park. I gave him a gratuity of 5 dollars regardless. What better way to shame a Republican than to subject him to charity?
Zion National Park is amazing. We had to pass through three different time zones to get to it and we lost count. My watch kept showing different times as I passed from Nevada, through Arizona and into Utah. Finally, when we returned to Vegas, we realized that we had returned an hour earlier than planned. Inside, the park is breathtaking. You are surrounded by all these huge mountains which were formed as a result of erosion by the Virgin River, thus proving that even nature will tolerate all kinds of shit from a virgin. The majesty of the canyon monoliths makes you feel humble. You realize that no matter how great you think you are and how much you earn in US dollars, your body could never be sculpted into those massive peaks by a river. The weather in Zion reminded me of my Pune. Hot without being humid and you could feel all your bodily fluids slowly making their way into the atmosphere.
As a final note, hello Atlantic City NJ, you should quit trying to be like Vegas. It only makes you look foolish.
During this trip, we didn't spend a lot of time in the casinos. Instead, we visited the Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks. We rented a Chrysler 300 car which should have been better than my Volkswagen Jetta but wasn't. The speed limit in Nevada is 75 mph. It made me happy and I shed a tear for my own state's ubiquitous 55. But the highlight of our trip was our final night spent in Caesar's Palace. Something happened somewhere in somebody's brain and instead of an ordinary room, we were given a suite. It consisted of :
a.> 1 living room
b.> 2 bedrooms
c.> 4 bathrooms
d.> jacuzzi with massage jets
e.> 5 flat screen HD television sets.
f.> 3 different views of the Strip.
g.> Complimentary bag of cashews.
Okay I was exaggerating, I had to pay for the cashews. But everything else is true.
I think the reason behind this benevolence was the intense sentimentalization of the guy at the reception desk due to the fact that we were both from Pennsylvania. And luckily, when he said he was from Pittsburgh, I did not say oh, I thought you said you were from Pennsylvania ha ha. Also, when he said are you Indian, my mentor is Indian, I did not say really, what a coincidence, my mentor is American. Due to all these non-sayings of mine, we received the suite, thus proving once and for all, that if ever I feel like saying anything, it should be best left unsaid.
The Grand Canyon was quite windy. I offered her my Philadelphia Eagles cap and she accepted it with dignity and ferocity. The bus driver was probably a Republican because he kept taking pot shots at Hillary Clinton from the airport to the park. I gave him a gratuity of 5 dollars regardless. What better way to shame a Republican than to subject him to charity?
Zion National Park is amazing. We had to pass through three different time zones to get to it and we lost count. My watch kept showing different times as I passed from Nevada, through Arizona and into Utah. Finally, when we returned to Vegas, we realized that we had returned an hour earlier than planned. Inside, the park is breathtaking. You are surrounded by all these huge mountains which were formed as a result of erosion by the Virgin River, thus proving that even nature will tolerate all kinds of shit from a virgin. The majesty of the canyon monoliths makes you feel humble. You realize that no matter how great you think you are and how much you earn in US dollars, your body could never be sculpted into those massive peaks by a river. The weather in Zion reminded me of my Pune. Hot without being humid and you could feel all your bodily fluids slowly making their way into the atmosphere.
As a final note, hello Atlantic City NJ, you should quit trying to be like Vegas. It only makes you look foolish.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Still Friday photo-blogging
I was just foraging in my camera and I found this picture of the Montague Book Mill that I had snapped during my last visit to New England. I don't know man, I have a strong urge to go back there tomorrow, 6 hour drive through New York City be damned.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Today
This is a public service announcement. Today is Friday the 13th.
I hope you got out of your bed today left foot first. Now go walk under a ladder while wearing your shirt inside out and throw a mirror at the black cat that crosses your path. If you cut yourself, spill salt on the wound. Don't be distracted by the moon shining over your left shoulder or the insomniac rooster who insists on crowing at night.
Thank you.
Also, just so I can finally get this out of the way, two saturdays ago, I went to Jim Thorpe with Mrs Gawker, Zambezi and Mrs Zambezi where we had wings and beer in an Irish bar. The wings were too hot for a South Indian and zambezi started sweating like a pig on a spit in summer with the air conditioning turned off. The concerned waitress asked him if he was having problems, if the wings were too spicy and he said yes, also assuring her that the considerable spice content of the wings would soon necessitate a sprint into the high hills for defecatory purposes. The waitress accepted his scatological confidences politely, in the proper spirit, with an ambivalent "ah".
And that was that.
The interesting thing about this particular picture is that it used to be a place where railroad cars going in opposite directions used to pass each other. It looked like this.
Spitting on the car underneath was out of bounds for everyone except the very highest of high society. Also notice how there is virtually no forestation in the old picture as compared to the new one. Immigration of trees to the US began in earnest only after the rain forests of the world began to face persecution in the early 20th century for their wood, their land and their bark, oh that sweet sweet bark.
I guess that's all for now. I had something else to say but I don't remember what it was.
I hope you got out of your bed today left foot first. Now go walk under a ladder while wearing your shirt inside out and throw a mirror at the black cat that crosses your path. If you cut yourself, spill salt on the wound. Don't be distracted by the moon shining over your left shoulder or the insomniac rooster who insists on crowing at night.
Thank you.
Also, just so I can finally get this out of the way, two saturdays ago, I went to Jim Thorpe with Mrs Gawker, Zambezi and Mrs Zambezi where we had wings and beer in an Irish bar. The wings were too hot for a South Indian and zambezi started sweating like a pig on a spit in summer with the air conditioning turned off. The concerned waitress asked him if he was having problems, if the wings were too spicy and he said yes, also assuring her that the considerable spice content of the wings would soon necessitate a sprint into the high hills for defecatory purposes. The waitress accepted his scatological confidences politely, in the proper spirit, with an ambivalent "ah".
And that was that.
Speaking of Jim Thorpe, here's a picture of the Switchback trail we "trekked" on, if you can call walking on a flat surface trekking. It's called the Five Mile Tree.
The interesting thing about this particular picture is that it used to be a place where railroad cars going in opposite directions used to pass each other. It looked like this.
Spitting on the car underneath was out of bounds for everyone except the very highest of high society. Also notice how there is virtually no forestation in the old picture as compared to the new one. Immigration of trees to the US began in earnest only after the rain forests of the world began to face persecution in the early 20th century for their wood, their land and their bark, oh that sweet sweet bark.
I guess that's all for now. I had something else to say but I don't remember what it was.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Friday Photo Blogging : The Schuylkill River Trail
Don't look now and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think spring is here. Okay what the heck, go on, look. Too late, it's back to freezing again. Look again tomorrow. It's expected to be nice and sunny and warm. But don't look on sunday because it's supposed to be cold and rainy. Monday is expected to be like saturday, tuesday like monday and fuck wednesday because no one cares about wednesday. So coming back to spring, I expect cycling activities to commence this weekend. Luckily, Philly, if not the biking capital of the US, is at least the biking capital of Philly with a number of decent biking trails within stone-throwing distance, although if you are going to throw a stone, make sure you aim for the speed-cyclists and not the leisure bikers. The biking trail that I patronize the most out of sheer laziness due to its close proximity to me is the Schuylkill River Trail from Valley Forge to the Philadelphia Art Museum along the banks of the Schuylkill River, a distance of about 25 miles.
The trail begins in Valley Forge Historic Park where George Washington amassed his troops during the revolutionary war while preparing to attack Philadelphia, which had been captured by the British and whose residents were now being forced to spell color with a "u".
On its way to Philly, the trail passes through Manayunk, a semi-pretentious neighbourhood which apparently is the place to be in if you're a young puppy, or, as it's known nowadays, a yuppy.
But to be fair, the trail also has sections like this one where the buildings get momentarily obscured by foliage.
Finally, the trail breaks out onto Kelly Drive, where the beautiful people of the city hang out to showcase their beauty and also to stay beautiful by engaging in various activities of physical exertion such as roller blading, biking and canoing. The following is the spot on the trail where the highly anticipated Philadelphia skyline makes its first appearance.
Further along the way, you pass this sculpture of a man shielding his eyes from the sun while humping an eagle, a testament to willpower and physical exertion.
Finally, the trail ends at the Philadelphia Art Museum which is a great place to spend a day in. One of the best exhibits in the museum is an entire authentic South Indian temple which was moved here and reconstructed one naked sculptured breast at a time.
Of course, you don't have to stop biking once you are at the Museum of Art. You could continue on into downtown Philly along this avenue lined with the flags of all countries except India, which the New Jerseyites keep stealing come every Independence Day to hang outside their own homes.
On the way, you pass City Hall with the statue of William Penn on top, who is famous for having his statue on top of City Hall.
Just behind this marvellous No Stopping sign which I really did mean to include in the picture, you can see a flock of people who've just exited a theater on Broad Street after watching a play.
This is the Kimmel Center, cultural center of the city. I am not sure what happens in there but some day I mean to find out. Maybe this guy knows, in fact, I am pretty sure that he does, so why don't you just ask him instead.
As for me, my ultimate destination is almost always South Philly, Heavenly Abode of the Cheesesteak Deity.
I hope this travelogue will inspire some of you to travel to Philadelphia for taking its sights and sounds in and Mayor John Street out with you when you leave. If so, may the spirit of the Lizard riding a Chicken aid and abet you in your endeavours.
Related post : The Delaware Canal Biking Trail.
People travel to Manayunk to bike on a very small section of the trail along the Manayunk canal which makes perfect sense because that section of the trail is generously endowed with crumbling factory buildings like this one which makes for a very scenic ride.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
If it isn't snowing, it must be Christmas
The title refers to global warming and the fact that it was 70 degrees during Christmas and there was no snow, so please, people, listen to Al Gore and stop creating carbon dioxide. Carbon monoxide is fine. You there, with the sulphur dioxide, quit it.
There was a time about two weeks ago when I realized that I was burnt out. The burn was due to work and everything else. It was about the same time that I discovered that being a "self-referential" blogger was apparently not a good thing to be and the fact that I had been called one in the past (that too, by an IISc professor) made it even worse. Plus, add to that the wife being gone to India for a two week long vacation and that I couldn't be with her because of the vagaries of that American institution formerly known as the INS, later known as the BCIS and presently known to no one except their own selves as the USCIS, not that it matters.
So it was that a nervous wreck took over the reins of my holidays and that was me. I took the Christmas week off, not knowing what to do except in the short term, consume as much alcohol as was humanly possible and try not to think about that constant ache in my head. The ache began one day when I was lifting weights with my legs. I have observed that people who lift weights do so using every muscle in their body except the ones in their legs. Apparently the fact that the lower half of the male body is perpetually covered with fabric dissuades most health-conscious men from exercising their legs. But not me because I am a non-conformist.
So as I was lifting this extremely heavy weight with my legs, doing what they call a squat, I experienced a sudden twinge of pain somewhere in my brain between the second and third ligaments, speaking as a professional. And ever since, my head has been hurting. Apart from the vague realization that I might be dying due to a burst cerebral blood vessel, there was also that irritating perpetual headache. All in all, these factors made life very unpleasant during Christmas week. Plus, no one to complain to, wife being in India and no contact with my graduate advisor for the past 6 years.
When faced with adversity, most men face it. Some run away from it. Since I am a twentieth century adversity guy, I drive away from it.
I decided to take a long drive. To New England. Every few months in my life, there is this itch that builds up in me with regards to New England, where I first landed on the Mayflower in the form of the Amtrak Vermonter. New England will forever be my ideal place to live in the US. In large part, it's because I spent my graduate life there. Also, since it's the very first place in the US that I found myself in, now, even after seeing the rest of the country, my subconscious still associates everything that is magical and beautiful about the US with New England.
So, a few times every year, this irrational itch drives me to visit Massachusetts and my university, UMass Amherst, and haunt the surroundings for a day or two. And now, since I had a weeks worth of spare solitary time, I decided to indulge the itch.
Renting a car, I drove north. Why rent a car? Well, my own car is a stick shift. And to travel from Philly to Massachusetts, you have to pass through New York City. Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. Also, where there are miles of traffic backup where you have to keep clutching and de-clutching if you have a stick shift. No, I needed an automatic. Plus, I was planning on covering some heavy mileage.
After catching some heavy traffic on the NJTP, I wondered whether I should visit my friend zambezi who lives in New Jersey. If they call it living, that is. I called him at 3:30 in the afternoon to see if he was in the mood for a few beers. But I got no response. He was in a meeting or something, busy driving the economy for the rest of us blue collar workers (he has people working under him *awe*). When he finally called back, I was well past the George Washington Bridge (that bright young thing that connects New Jersey with New York City) after having spent the better part of an hour on the bridge, clutching and de-clutching in my mind because the car was a sweet automatic. Zambezi asked me to turn back and come see him because his wife was out for the weekend as well, and he needed a drinking buddy. But seeing the traffic on the other side of the road, I refused. I had had enough of George Washington, with all due respect to the bridge guy.
I reached Amherst at 8:30 in the evening. I decided to bunk in the Quality Inn at Hadley, about a mile away from the university. The receptionist made it a point of telling me that they had an indoor swimming pool. The temperature was 30 degrees Fahrenheit, or -1 degrees Celcius. Yes, the time was ripe for a swim.
I went to what used to be my favorite haunt in Amherst, the Amherst Brewing Company. If you are ever there, order the stuffed chipotle chicken jalapeno poppers. They are jalapeno peppers, stuffed with cheese and chicken, an unusual situation for a bird to find itself in, inside a vegetable. Usually it's the other way around.
Hey, if any of you live in Massachusetts or surroundings, this is what I would like you to do. Drive to Amherst. If you are in Boston, take the Masspike W to 91 N, then the Northampton exit and route 9 E to Amherst. If you are in Connecticut, take 95 N to 91 N. If you're in Vermont, first build yourself a road that goes south. After you reach Massachusetts, drive on 91S and take the Northampton exit. If you're in New Hampshire, drive north away from Massachusetts because c'mon, we all know how you feel about Massachusetts.
But anyways, coming back to the point, when you reach Amherst, visit this pizza joint called Antonio's in downtown Amherst village. It has the best pizza in the whole wide world. And I'm not just saying it because I invested in it, which I haven't. Basically it is gourmet pizza. For example, spicy chicken with blue cheese. Or barbequed chicken bacon with ranch dressing. Steak and mushrooms. Who the fuck makes pizzas like these? No one. Also, you will be immortalized on film. They have a live webcam on the premises. By the way, I just found out that they also serve other university campuses like Texas A&M and Brown University. So instead of doing the Hajj this year, travel to Antonio's Pizza in Amherst, MA instead. Not getting killed in a pilgrim stampede will be an additional bonus.
(To be continued)
There was a time about two weeks ago when I realized that I was burnt out. The burn was due to work and everything else. It was about the same time that I discovered that being a "self-referential" blogger was apparently not a good thing to be and the fact that I had been called one in the past (that too, by an IISc professor) made it even worse. Plus, add to that the wife being gone to India for a two week long vacation and that I couldn't be with her because of the vagaries of that American institution formerly known as the INS, later known as the BCIS and presently known to no one except their own selves as the USCIS, not that it matters.
So it was that a nervous wreck took over the reins of my holidays and that was me. I took the Christmas week off, not knowing what to do except in the short term, consume as much alcohol as was humanly possible and try not to think about that constant ache in my head. The ache began one day when I was lifting weights with my legs. I have observed that people who lift weights do so using every muscle in their body except the ones in their legs. Apparently the fact that the lower half of the male body is perpetually covered with fabric dissuades most health-conscious men from exercising their legs. But not me because I am a non-conformist.
So as I was lifting this extremely heavy weight with my legs, doing what they call a squat, I experienced a sudden twinge of pain somewhere in my brain between the second and third ligaments, speaking as a professional. And ever since, my head has been hurting. Apart from the vague realization that I might be dying due to a burst cerebral blood vessel, there was also that irritating perpetual headache. All in all, these factors made life very unpleasant during Christmas week. Plus, no one to complain to, wife being in India and no contact with my graduate advisor for the past 6 years.
When faced with adversity, most men face it. Some run away from it. Since I am a twentieth century adversity guy, I drive away from it.
I decided to take a long drive. To New England. Every few months in my life, there is this itch that builds up in me with regards to New England, where I first landed on the Mayflower in the form of the Amtrak Vermonter. New England will forever be my ideal place to live in the US. In large part, it's because I spent my graduate life there. Also, since it's the very first place in the US that I found myself in, now, even after seeing the rest of the country, my subconscious still associates everything that is magical and beautiful about the US with New England.
So, a few times every year, this irrational itch drives me to visit Massachusetts and my university, UMass Amherst, and haunt the surroundings for a day or two. And now, since I had a weeks worth of spare solitary time, I decided to indulge the itch.
Renting a car, I drove north. Why rent a car? Well, my own car is a stick shift. And to travel from Philly to Massachusetts, you have to pass through New York City. Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. Also, where there are miles of traffic backup where you have to keep clutching and de-clutching if you have a stick shift. No, I needed an automatic. Plus, I was planning on covering some heavy mileage.
After catching some heavy traffic on the NJTP, I wondered whether I should visit my friend zambezi who lives in New Jersey. If they call it living, that is. I called him at 3:30 in the afternoon to see if he was in the mood for a few beers. But I got no response. He was in a meeting or something, busy driving the economy for the rest of us blue collar workers (he has people working under him *awe*). When he finally called back, I was well past the George Washington Bridge (that bright young thing that connects New Jersey with New York City) after having spent the better part of an hour on the bridge, clutching and de-clutching in my mind because the car was a sweet automatic. Zambezi asked me to turn back and come see him because his wife was out for the weekend as well, and he needed a drinking buddy. But seeing the traffic on the other side of the road, I refused. I had had enough of George Washington, with all due respect to the bridge guy.
I reached Amherst at 8:30 in the evening. I decided to bunk in the Quality Inn at Hadley, about a mile away from the university. The receptionist made it a point of telling me that they had an indoor swimming pool. The temperature was 30 degrees Fahrenheit, or -1 degrees Celcius. Yes, the time was ripe for a swim.
I went to what used to be my favorite haunt in Amherst, the Amherst Brewing Company. If you are ever there, order the stuffed chipotle chicken jalapeno poppers. They are jalapeno peppers, stuffed with cheese and chicken, an unusual situation for a bird to find itself in, inside a vegetable. Usually it's the other way around.
Hey, if any of you live in Massachusetts or surroundings, this is what I would like you to do. Drive to Amherst. If you are in Boston, take the Masspike W to 91 N, then the Northampton exit and route 9 E to Amherst. If you are in Connecticut, take 95 N to 91 N. If you're in Vermont, first build yourself a road that goes south. After you reach Massachusetts, drive on 91S and take the Northampton exit. If you're in New Hampshire, drive north away from Massachusetts because c'mon, we all know how you feel about Massachusetts.
But anyways, coming back to the point, when you reach Amherst, visit this pizza joint called Antonio's in downtown Amherst village. It has the best pizza in the whole wide world. And I'm not just saying it because I invested in it, which I haven't. Basically it is gourmet pizza. For example, spicy chicken with blue cheese. Or barbequed chicken bacon with ranch dressing. Steak and mushrooms. Who the fuck makes pizzas like these? No one. Also, you will be immortalized on film. They have a live webcam on the premises. By the way, I just found out that they also serve other university campuses like Texas A&M and Brown University. So instead of doing the Hajj this year, travel to Antonio's Pizza in Amherst, MA instead. Not getting killed in a pilgrim stampede will be an additional bonus.
(To be continued)
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Sal & Carvao
Now would be a good time for me to talk about Sal & Carvao because it's that special period right before Thanksgiving and Christmas when people make their travel plans and this is where I would like you to go this holiday season. Sal & Carvao is a Brazilian "churrascaria", or what Americans would call a "steakhouse". It is a Chicago-based purveyor of gastronomical delights. The Sal stands for salt, Carvao stands for charcoal and the "&" stands for "&cute Indigestion". It's funny how the Brazilian language works. Or Portuguese, if you are one of those insufferable pricks who immediately began scribbling a comment criticizing my knowledge of world geography.
As you enter the restaurant, the first thing you observe is a glass enclosure with a real fire burning inside and a slab of unidentifiable meat dangling over it and melting fat falling onto the flames. About the ambience, yes, the place is very ambient. It is also very Brazilian with elongated pieces of Brazil hanging off the walls and fuck it, I have no clue about the ambience of the place. I did not notice my surroundings. I was there for the food. And that was all I was interested in.
This is how it works. First you go to the salad bar and load up with the greens. You may grab unlimited amounts of the stuff. A word of advice, do not do that. You will realize why as the story progresses. After you have raided the salad bar, it is time for the main course. The main course consists of meat and lots of meat. Fifteen different types of meat, to be exact. Just like the salad bar, one's consumption of the stuff is limited merely by one's willpower and strength of character.
Now I realize that there are vegetarians among you who, at this very moment, are waving your lettuces and turnip greens at me and going hello gawker, I am not interested in listening to your stories about all this meat nonsense. Please, leaf eater, I hate to do this, but just for today, why don't you point your mouse at the "next blog" button in the top left corner, 'cause I've got to get this off my chest. But hey, come back tomorrow. I will be done with my meat story by then.
But returning to the scene unfolding back in the churrascaria, this is what happens during the main course : Servers come around to your table at regular intervals and ask you whether you wish to partake of the slab of meat that happens to be present on their person at that particular moment. If you reply in the affirmative, they slice off a portion onto your plate. Then they move on and more servers arrive to take their place, carrying even more meat of a different variety.
And oh, what variety. Flank steak. Filet Mignon. Pork tenderloin. Monk fish. Not lungfish, by the way, and I am talking to you, jackass colleague, who kept yelling at the lungfish guy to come over. Chicken legs. Garlic Steak. Beef Ribs. Sirloin. Rump Steak. Sausage. Lamb chops. Baby back ribs. Salmon. I can't even fucking remember what the remaining two cuts were. All hot juicy, flavorful and all you can fucking eat, sorry Africa. Actually, the entire thing makes you feel like you're in the middle of a Roman orgy without all the nudity.
For every load of meat, the meat bearer simultaneously holds four different types of meat impaled on four different skewers depending on their doneness : rare, medium rare, medium and well done. You have to let the guy know how well you like your meat done and he slices from the correct skewer. Now for the million dollar question, when do you stop eating, if ever? Well, theoretically, you could eat all evening and through the night and into next morning because you are allowed to do that. But after a given point, the body begins to exhibit symptoms of what they call meat poisoning, also known in German as Fleischvergiftung, yeah I know, it seems incredible that such a thing actually exists, the most common symptom being a noticeable feeling of stomach fullness.
That is when you pick up the card resting on the table by your side, oh I forgot to tell you about the card, it is round and red on one side and green on the other, and when it rests green side up, servers continue to serve you meat, but once you are done eating either to take a bathroom break or to swallow the meat your mouth is already full of, you turn it and let it rest with the red side up. That is when the servers stop serving you. But please do not fool around with the card, yes obviously I thought it would be a good idea to, you know, keep it green and wait for the server to arrive and then turn it red just as he was about to open his mouth. Been there, done that, not funny.
A word of warning, though. Be prepared for a shock when they present you with the check. A 100 dollars apiece. Yes, now it makes sense, all that unlimited meat. Luckily when we entered the place we were not aware of the monetary implications involved and only came to know about them after the devouring had ended. I do not anticipate gaining access to the company credit card anytime in the near future. Or even the more distant future for that matter, the one where we will all be mere heads enclosed in hemispherical glass cases and supported by robotic spider bodies.
But hey, go there at least once during this lifetime if you are in Chicago. Downtown Chicago. I don't know exactly where, ask the goddamn Iraqi cab driver but please don't ask him how the food is because trust me, he hasn't eaten there and if you were fiscally responsible, neither would you. But don't listen to me, go there anyways.
As you enter the restaurant, the first thing you observe is a glass enclosure with a real fire burning inside and a slab of unidentifiable meat dangling over it and melting fat falling onto the flames. About the ambience, yes, the place is very ambient. It is also very Brazilian with elongated pieces of Brazil hanging off the walls and fuck it, I have no clue about the ambience of the place. I did not notice my surroundings. I was there for the food. And that was all I was interested in.
This is how it works. First you go to the salad bar and load up with the greens. You may grab unlimited amounts of the stuff. A word of advice, do not do that. You will realize why as the story progresses. After you have raided the salad bar, it is time for the main course. The main course consists of meat and lots of meat. Fifteen different types of meat, to be exact. Just like the salad bar, one's consumption of the stuff is limited merely by one's willpower and strength of character.
Now I realize that there are vegetarians among you who, at this very moment, are waving your lettuces and turnip greens at me and going hello gawker, I am not interested in listening to your stories about all this meat nonsense. Please, leaf eater, I hate to do this, but just for today, why don't you point your mouse at the "next blog" button in the top left corner, 'cause I've got to get this off my chest. But hey, come back tomorrow. I will be done with my meat story by then.
But returning to the scene unfolding back in the churrascaria, this is what happens during the main course : Servers come around to your table at regular intervals and ask you whether you wish to partake of the slab of meat that happens to be present on their person at that particular moment. If you reply in the affirmative, they slice off a portion onto your plate. Then they move on and more servers arrive to take their place, carrying even more meat of a different variety.
And oh, what variety. Flank steak. Filet Mignon. Pork tenderloin. Monk fish. Not lungfish, by the way, and I am talking to you, jackass colleague, who kept yelling at the lungfish guy to come over. Chicken legs. Garlic Steak. Beef Ribs. Sirloin. Rump Steak. Sausage. Lamb chops. Baby back ribs. Salmon. I can't even fucking remember what the remaining two cuts were. All hot juicy, flavorful and all you can fucking eat, sorry Africa. Actually, the entire thing makes you feel like you're in the middle of a Roman orgy without all the nudity.
For every load of meat, the meat bearer simultaneously holds four different types of meat impaled on four different skewers depending on their doneness : rare, medium rare, medium and well done. You have to let the guy know how well you like your meat done and he slices from the correct skewer. Now for the million dollar question, when do you stop eating, if ever? Well, theoretically, you could eat all evening and through the night and into next morning because you are allowed to do that. But after a given point, the body begins to exhibit symptoms of what they call meat poisoning, also known in German as Fleischvergiftung, yeah I know, it seems incredible that such a thing actually exists, the most common symptom being a noticeable feeling of stomach fullness.That is when you pick up the card resting on the table by your side, oh I forgot to tell you about the card, it is round and red on one side and green on the other, and when it rests green side up, servers continue to serve you meat, but once you are done eating either to take a bathroom break or to swallow the meat your mouth is already full of, you turn it and let it rest with the red side up. That is when the servers stop serving you. But please do not fool around with the card, yes obviously I thought it would be a good idea to, you know, keep it green and wait for the server to arrive and then turn it red just as he was about to open his mouth. Been there, done that, not funny.
A word of warning, though. Be prepared for a shock when they present you with the check. A 100 dollars apiece. Yes, now it makes sense, all that unlimited meat. Luckily when we entered the place we were not aware of the monetary implications involved and only came to know about them after the devouring had ended. I do not anticipate gaining access to the company credit card anytime in the near future. Or even the more distant future for that matter, the one where we will all be mere heads enclosed in hemispherical glass cases and supported by robotic spider bodies.
But hey, go there at least once during this lifetime if you are in Chicago. Downtown Chicago. I don't know exactly where, ask the goddamn Iraqi cab driver but please don't ask him how the food is because trust me, he hasn't eaten there and if you were fiscally responsible, neither would you. But don't listen to me, go there anyways.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Chicago : Day 1
I will recount my adventures in Chicago to the best of my knowledge, abilities and memory.
It all began at Chicago's Midway Airport. The Bible tells of its origin. After God had gathered a hunk of his own feces to create Adam and then sculpted one of Adam's ribs into Eve, he asked Eve to part with any body part of her choice to create Chicago's Midway Airport. Eve, being a selfish possessive bitch, merely agreed to donate a toenail. And that was how Midway Airport was born.
Chicagoans who do not believe in the literal word of the Bible have a different story to tell. They say that at the junction of West 55th Street and South Cicero Avenue in Chicago, there used to be an average sized pothole. After people started complaining about it, workers from IDOT filled it up and just as they were standing around admiring their handiwork, someone realized that the area they had just filled up was big enough for planes to land and take off from. And so, Midway Airport was born.
The point being, Midway Airport is small. And it is in the middle of a residential neighbourhood. And just as your plane is about to land and your landing gear is scraping across the rooftops of the tired, the poor and the huddled masses, you can see those huddled masses giving you the finger from their bedroom windows where they've been desperately trying to conceive a child amidst the din of jet engines and maintenance technicians being sucked inside them. It is not a mere coincidence that Midway Airport was where a plane skidded through the entire runway one winter's night and crashed into a car on the adjacent road. So yes, it is a small airport, disproportionately so, compared to the size of the planes that attempt to land on its minuscule runway.
But no, this is not a post exclusively about Midway Airport. The first day of my sojourn in Chicago began at 6:00 in the evening. It involved getting wasted with my jackass of a colleague who had discovered a long lost friend at the trade show (already under way) and decided to get together with him with me tagging along for the heck of it. The meeting took place at the ESPN zone, the only place in the US where every urinary receptacle, by law, has to have a television set of its own. I have been told that this was done in order to reduce bladder explosion fatalities during football games. Men, the cute and stupid species that we are, often refuse to heed nature's call if it's 4th and goal in the final minute of the game and the only way they could put an end to those exploding bladders was by allowing us to watch the game while we urinate.
Secondly, if you wish to partake of adult beverages at the ESPN zone, here's a rule of thumb to calculate the damage a single glass of beer is going to inflict upon your wallet. Take the cost of a regular glass of beer. Then, include a bartender's tip approximately equal to 100% of the price. Finally, add to it the cost of rocket fuel required to transport this glass of beer to the moon and back.
But getting back to the night in question, this friend of my colleague, who turned out to be a Bush supporter, after the requisite number of pints had been injected into him, decided to inquire about my political leanings. The sad fact about life is that most political debates not taking place on network television occur under the influence of alcohol. And so, many coherent points that could and should have been made during the debate fail to see the light of day. Which is why, enthusiastic as I am about trying to convert people from the dark side in order to show them the light, after a point, it was inevitable that the honest discussion on the topic in question would degenerate into a honest discussion about what the topic in question actually was.
The political discussion continued in the taxi cab as we left the bar. Fortunately, it so happened that our cab driver was an Iraqi Kurd, who had his own opinions on the matter. Unfortunately, his opinions turned out to be those that did not coincide with mine. Much yelling ensued and we were thrown out of the cab. Note to self : Never again try to convince someone whose people were gassed by a dictator that the overthrow of this dictator was a bad thing.
Our evacuation from the cab led us into another bar which I will call George's bar because that was its name. It was the smokiest bar I have ever had the privilege of coughing violently inside. It was an awful bar. Sorry George, but that is the naked unvarnished truth. If I were to be rating bars and if I were to give a bar where the bartender spat in your beer, kicked you in the crotch, threw it in your face and then billed you for it a rating of 1 star, this bar would get 0 stars. There had to be a reason for all that smoke. I think it was poor ventilation but I can't be sure because visibility was also poor. Forget second hand smoke, the only way you could get more cigarette smoke into your lungs would be by shoving raw tobacco down your lungs along with a lighted matchstick.
There was a strange thing about this bar. As I was groping around (in a non Arnold Schwarzenegger kind of way) for the restroom, I happened upon a door. I opened it and on the other side was an identical bar, with bartender, drinkers, lung cancer and all. I said oops and sorry, closed the door and returned to my side of the parallel universe thinking, goddamm, I really need to pee. The restroom was on the second floor with one of those urinals where you urinate into a basin pretending to be connected to plumbing but which, in reality, has a hole in its bottom directed towards your shoes. That simple act of urinating on my own shoes caused a brief moment of homesickness to rise in me like a violent bout of seasickness because the total number of fingers on my hands and legs outnumbers the times I've had this happen to me in an Indian movie theater, but only barely.
But all good things must come to an end, in this case, at about 2:00 in the morning. Tomorrow would be my first appearance at the trade show. The last thing I remember before falling asleep was thinking that falling asleep at 2:00 was not such a great idea.
Next : The Trade Show.
It all began at Chicago's Midway Airport. The Bible tells of its origin. After God had gathered a hunk of his own feces to create Adam and then sculpted one of Adam's ribs into Eve, he asked Eve to part with any body part of her choice to create Chicago's Midway Airport. Eve, being a selfish possessive bitch, merely agreed to donate a toenail. And that was how Midway Airport was born.
Chicagoans who do not believe in the literal word of the Bible have a different story to tell. They say that at the junction of West 55th Street and South Cicero Avenue in Chicago, there used to be an average sized pothole. After people started complaining about it, workers from IDOT filled it up and just as they were standing around admiring their handiwork, someone realized that the area they had just filled up was big enough for planes to land and take off from. And so, Midway Airport was born.
The point being, Midway Airport is small. And it is in the middle of a residential neighbourhood. And just as your plane is about to land and your landing gear is scraping across the rooftops of the tired, the poor and the huddled masses, you can see those huddled masses giving you the finger from their bedroom windows where they've been desperately trying to conceive a child amidst the din of jet engines and maintenance technicians being sucked inside them. It is not a mere coincidence that Midway Airport was where a plane skidded through the entire runway one winter's night and crashed into a car on the adjacent road. So yes, it is a small airport, disproportionately so, compared to the size of the planes that attempt to land on its minuscule runway.
But no, this is not a post exclusively about Midway Airport. The first day of my sojourn in Chicago began at 6:00 in the evening. It involved getting wasted with my jackass of a colleague who had discovered a long lost friend at the trade show (already under way) and decided to get together with him with me tagging along for the heck of it. The meeting took place at the ESPN zone, the only place in the US where every urinary receptacle, by law, has to have a television set of its own. I have been told that this was done in order to reduce bladder explosion fatalities during football games. Men, the cute and stupid species that we are, often refuse to heed nature's call if it's 4th and goal in the final minute of the game and the only way they could put an end to those exploding bladders was by allowing us to watch the game while we urinate.
Secondly, if you wish to partake of adult beverages at the ESPN zone, here's a rule of thumb to calculate the damage a single glass of beer is going to inflict upon your wallet. Take the cost of a regular glass of beer. Then, include a bartender's tip approximately equal to 100% of the price. Finally, add to it the cost of rocket fuel required to transport this glass of beer to the moon and back.
But getting back to the night in question, this friend of my colleague, who turned out to be a Bush supporter, after the requisite number of pints had been injected into him, decided to inquire about my political leanings. The sad fact about life is that most political debates not taking place on network television occur under the influence of alcohol. And so, many coherent points that could and should have been made during the debate fail to see the light of day. Which is why, enthusiastic as I am about trying to convert people from the dark side in order to show them the light, after a point, it was inevitable that the honest discussion on the topic in question would degenerate into a honest discussion about what the topic in question actually was.
The political discussion continued in the taxi cab as we left the bar. Fortunately, it so happened that our cab driver was an Iraqi Kurd, who had his own opinions on the matter. Unfortunately, his opinions turned out to be those that did not coincide with mine. Much yelling ensued and we were thrown out of the cab. Note to self : Never again try to convince someone whose people were gassed by a dictator that the overthrow of this dictator was a bad thing.
Our evacuation from the cab led us into another bar which I will call George's bar because that was its name. It was the smokiest bar I have ever had the privilege of coughing violently inside. It was an awful bar. Sorry George, but that is the naked unvarnished truth. If I were to be rating bars and if I were to give a bar where the bartender spat in your beer, kicked you in the crotch, threw it in your face and then billed you for it a rating of 1 star, this bar would get 0 stars. There had to be a reason for all that smoke. I think it was poor ventilation but I can't be sure because visibility was also poor. Forget second hand smoke, the only way you could get more cigarette smoke into your lungs would be by shoving raw tobacco down your lungs along with a lighted matchstick.
There was a strange thing about this bar. As I was groping around (in a non Arnold Schwarzenegger kind of way) for the restroom, I happened upon a door. I opened it and on the other side was an identical bar, with bartender, drinkers, lung cancer and all. I said oops and sorry, closed the door and returned to my side of the parallel universe thinking, goddamm, I really need to pee. The restroom was on the second floor with one of those urinals where you urinate into a basin pretending to be connected to plumbing but which, in reality, has a hole in its bottom directed towards your shoes. That simple act of urinating on my own shoes caused a brief moment of homesickness to rise in me like a violent bout of seasickness because the total number of fingers on my hands and legs outnumbers the times I've had this happen to me in an Indian movie theater, but only barely.
But all good things must come to an end, in this case, at about 2:00 in the morning. Tomorrow would be my first appearance at the trade show. The last thing I remember before falling asleep was thinking that falling asleep at 2:00 was not such a great idea.
Next : The Trade Show.
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