little girl in Gotham in China, part 2

It has been nearly two months since I last posted.  A lot of life has changed; a lot of things have happened, a lot is going on. However, I need to finish up my China/Hong Kong trip recap…

I awoke after a short and fitful sleep to this view out of my hotel room window.

1 star view

I had about two hours to wait before we were supposed to leave and about 30 minutes until breakfast started.  ok, I’ll just hang in my room.  I did not take a shower.  The shower stall was way too dark for that (one dim light in the ceiling and a stone floor surrounded by black glass? sexy).  Instead I amused myself with looking at the snack bar offerings.

Is that Dried Tunip I see?

I had a free breakfast buffet coupon (two, actually, though I’m not sure why) and, so, at the prescribed time I went downstairs to the third floor to try my luck.  Breakfast, as a rule, is pretty accessible.  I have eaten many a Chinese buffet breakfast: there’s usually fruit, noodles, jook (mmmmmmm…) and some sort of deep-fried thing.  This was also going to be better than the meals of the previous day because I could control what I put onto my plate.  I arrived at the third floor, hungry and full of optimism!

I walked in to the buffet breakfast room and every Chinese businessman’s head swiveled toward me.  If there had been music, it would have stopped.  I took a survey of the area.  Straight ahead was the stack of plates to start the buffet line.  They were sitting on a table that was covered with what used to be a pink, floor-length cloth.  To the right of that, along the wall, were the hot plates, chafing dishes, bowls and the random steam carts of breakfast.  In the middle of the room were about 20 tables with seats for 8 people at each.  These tables were also covered by formerly pink, floor-length tablecloths.  There was also a world-class sound system, stage and lights in the non-lit half of the room.  It seems that preceding a night of debauchery the local swells like to sing a bit of karaoke.   The fact that half of the room was not lit gave the whole scene an ominous look; I couldn’t tell who might be lurking in the shadows.  If there were going to be lurkers, they would be here.  It felt like I had wandered into a David Lynch movie in one of the bad scenes.  I approached the stack of plates, found one that didn’t have bits of things clinging to it and moved to the right.  The room was silent and the man half-way down the buffet line simply stopped what he was doing and stared at me.

Just a couple of tasty close-ups of the “sex bar” offerings…

Use after unclean sex contact.

Eliminate Strange Odor.

First was a case of ice cream with access from the back and no-one behind it.  Nope.  Next was a table with wafer-thin slices of watermelon triangles on a large platter.  I took three pieces with the provided toothpicks.  Next was jook.  What’s jook, you ask?  Imagine a large pot of water.  Now add a handful of white rice.  Cook that until the rice has disintegrated into mostly nothingness and your water is sort of opaque and stringy.  Now add “1000 year old eggs” cut into pieces, bits of mystery meat, maybe a veggie or two and you’ve got yourself some breakfast.  (I have had jook before and it’s not that bad.  This stuff, though, looked bad.) It was quite popular as evidenced by the large puddles of it on the tablecloth.  Someone before me had served himself by taking the ladle to the stack of bowls (instead of bringing the bowl to the ladle) and had gotten a quite a bit of it down the side of all the dishes.  I moved on.  Next was a table of the non-jook things.  First was hard-boiled eggs; I added one to my plate.  Next was sausage links; very Western and greenish-grey.  Nope.  Next was an empty dish with a placard next to it that it was “three meat noodle”.  I tried to think what the three meats might be and failed.  Next was a dish called scrambled eggs that resembled a lumpy mass resting in some yellowish water.  Nope.  At the end of the table was an old steam cart with two types of dim sum; I took one of each and realized that I had reached the end of the food.  I looked back down the line of tables and dishes.  I looked at the sad watermelon, hard-boiled egg and two little dim-sum dumplings on my plate.  Did I miss something?  Evidently not…  I found an empty table and sat down.  Where was the tea?  I could find dented steel coffee pots with cold, greasy coffee and jugs of soya milk but no tea.  Yikes; this is China.  How could they not have tea?  Other people had tea.  I didn’t want to investigate and get grabbed by a lurker.

I still held the interest of most of the restaurant and decided that the best thing would be to eat and scoot.  The hard-boiled egg had a green yolk.  The dim sum tasted funny, the watermelon disappeared on my tongue when I tried to eat it.  Oh well, at least I can leave; oops two people from dinner last night sat down at my table.  More talk in a language I don’t understand.  Cool!  I asked one of them where the tea was.  He brought me a chipped pot and a coffee mug full of tea.  I thanked him, drank it and tried not to think about it.

I spent a lot of time looking at the clock and left the table with 20 minutes to spare before we were all supposed to meet in the lobby.  The walk back to my room was interesting – I could see that someone has spit down the front of the standing ashtray, I hear a man throwing up (think cartoon sounds and you’ll get a sense of it) and finally decipher the mystery of the three switches in my room.

Ashtray. Poor aim.

I couldn’t figure out what these switches were for. I pushed them and nothing seemed to happen.

 

I realized no one else knew what they were for either. Most of the rooms had all three lights lit.

 

I get down to the lobby and find everyone waiting for me as I am late by 2 minutes.  Ok!  Let’s go!

We drove to the next factory and I worked until noon, which was when I was picked up by another factory owner and his representatives who took me to lunch.  The owner didn’t speak english well and so the meal was spent with lots of translating and big smiles and more food being put onto my plate.  There was a giant beef shank thing, deep-fried fish, more fatty pork wrapped in lettuce, some tough greens…  Again, I didn’t eat much – I was getting used to this…

This is like a roadside stand of carved stone. They aren’t too worried about theft.

At the factory we worked until 4:30 and then left to go to the airport.  I was traveling back to Hong Kong with two other people and the flight was full.  Luckily (for me) my flights had been booked so late by my company that there were only first class seats left.  Darn!  We got to use the lounge (which was stocked with tea, beer, wine and all sorts of Chinese packaged snacks).  I was so hungry at that point that I had no appetite.  I contented myself with a cup of tea although what I wanted was a beer.  A lot of beer.

Our flight was announced and the three of us left to go board.  The boarding area was incredibly crowded – I was thankful that we had been able to wait in the lounge.  An announcement was made: the plane was late by 20 minutes.  Ok; fine.  I wandered over to a shop as an excuse to do anything except stand awkwardly with two Chinese people who were intent on entertaining me.  Did I want anything?  No, thanks, I just like to look.  Look at this stuffed panda bear!  Look at this necklace!  Look at this crystal Hello Kitty!  Do I want it?  No, thank you.  I would buy it for you.  No, really, I just like to look at sparkly things that other people spend money on…

Giant slabs of stone. These are going to be someone’s countertops…

 

I’m ever so tired and I know that I have a 1.5 hour flight, a 45 minute taxi ride and a recap to write before I can sleep.  I am trying not to be terribly cranky.

There is another announcement made: the airplane actually hasn’t left the place it’s coming from and so it will be over an hour.  I scream internally and then ask my companions if they would like to try to get back into the lounge.  We try.  They are let in easily because they are frequent fliers.  I am also a frequent flier club member but I am also a first class ticket holder which I feel should mean even more.  I tell the gatekeeper girls that they already have my admittance ticket to the lounge.  They eye me suspiciously. I have had it up to my eyeballs with this sort of thing and I give them a death stare.  They let me in which was the sensible thing to do because my inner two-year-old was about to come out and was looking for an Excuse To Make A Scene.

We wait in the lounge.  I have another cup of tea and think of the amazing meal I’m going to have when I get back to Hong Kong.  I try my luck with the free WiFi but my phone is dead.  My iPad is also dead and, as we all know, I had no China plug.  Instead of expending my energy finding something that would work I pull out my work Blackberry (how many electronics can one little girl have?  All of them, that’s how many).  This was a big mistake as about 300 emails suddenly downloaded.  I put the Blackberry away and stared blankly off into space.  My computer was also dead.  I should have been working on my recap but my brain had completely checked out.

The plane finally arrived and we boarded an hour after we were supposed to have landed in Hong Kong.  As soon as I sat down I ordered a glass of champagne and relaxed for the first time in a day and a half.  I nodded off as soon as we were airborne and woke up when they started to serve the meal.  Here’s the funny thing: I hadn’t eaten much of anything for the past two days but I refused the airline meal because I didn’t want to ruin my appetite.  What?

I ordered another glass of champagne and to my great happiness, found that the seats had little plugs in them for computers and such.  Hooray!  I started on my recap; the champagne was definitely helping.  The Australian man next to me was talking about the deals he had cut on this trip and generally how awesome he was (to no one in particular).  Whatever. I concentrated on uploading the pictures I had taken at the factory that would be included with my recap.  My iPhone was being charged by my computer which was, in turn, being charged by the magical electrical airplane seat.  I felt content and optimistic that life would be ok after all.

We landed in Hong Kong and, since there were no gates available, we had to disembark on a hard stand (basically a rolling staircase) and ride busses to the terminal.   My heart sunk; it was already 9:45.  They released the swells first (meaning me and my first class compatriots).  My two travel partners were somewhere in the back.  It’s ok – we’ll meet up in the terminal.  I took the long, long walk to the customs/immigration area and I realized that there were very few other passengers in the lines.  I could zip through; I sent an instant message on my Blackberry letting my people know that I would meet them on the other side of customs.  It took me about 2 minutes to get through immigration (yes, this is my picture in my passport) and 1 minute to get through customs.  I waited at the other side of the security door.  I knew they both had checked luggage.  It was 10:00.  I was antsy and hungry and two glasses of champagne were helping me to think very clearly.  I turned and went to the taxi stand, got into a taxi and left a voicemail on the only phone number I had for my travel partners.  Half way there I realized two things: 1) my taxi driver was fearless, reckless and was determined to be the fastest car on the road. 2) this could go very badly.  What if they waited around for me and never got the voicemail?  I started e-mailing from my Blackberry in a mild state of panic, heightened by the fear that I was going to die in this taxi when it went careening off a bridge…

All’s well that ends well – I made it back to the hotel safely.  They figured out what had happened and left the airport after seeing I wasn’t waiting in the terminal (the Blackberry with the voicemail on it was dead).  I made it up to my room, ordered room service, and began writing a behemoth recap.  My meal arrived and I gratefully ate all of it though I was really too tired to enjoy it.  At 1:30 I sent my recap, took a shower and was in bed by 2.  It was nice to be back.

Saturday morning I met my people at 8:00 and we drove 4 hours north to visit our last factory.  We had to cross the border and I had to confirm, yet again, that this was my passport and picture.

Look closely – there’s a giant horse and rider on top of that mountain. He is an ancient warrior and his weapon is pointing at Taiwan. Apparently there’s also a nuclear facility around there.  I asked if the missiles were pointing at Taiwan, too.  Everyone thought me very clever.

We arrived at noon, just in time for lunch…  Please no!  This lunch was in a very fancy private room in a swank hotel.  They even had diamonds on the walls.  However, there were no towels in the bathroom when I went in to wash my hands…  Sigh.

The walls were quilted with vinyl and diamonds.

More stuff that looks like something I don’t want to eat.  There was a “teriyaki” dish (their word, not mine) and when I tried it the meat was tough, stringy and sweet.  There was a soup that smelled really bad (smell is bad, taste is good! No thanks!), some dumpling type thing, charred pieces of fat on a skewer, fish with it’s eyeballs popping out, more fatty pork in lettuce, some sort of bun thing…  I claim jet lag and eat very little.

The most distracting thing about this lunch was that there was a large-screen TV on silent showing a variety of shows.  When we arrived it was the story of the recent thousand-year-old year old egg scandal.  Apparently, instead of curing the eggs for the prescribed length of time (it’s not 1,000 years, I know that much) there is a company that used a copper compound to turn the eggs green and makes them look authentic.  The newscaster had real and fake eggs and she gave us sure-fire ways to determine if we were about to eat a good one or a bad one (the number of black spots that look like mold is a dead give-away.  The more black spots the better it is.  I find this hard to believe but who am I?).  Later, when we’re having lunch, there’s some sort of talent show with a well-coiffed, tuxedo-wearing male Chinese singer.  He has three very distinguished, English looking back-up singers; a grey-haired man, a woman and a younger man.  They are all doing synchronized arm movements while the main singer sings; sometimes he joins in.  The back-up singers faces are deadpan while they wave their arms above their heads.  The singer is seducing the camera with come-hither looks.  It’s fascinating.

We go, at last, to the factory and I take a tour and look at the two things they are producing for us.  Two? Other factories have had 10-12…  I am impressed by the facility but my company is small potatoes to them; they’re not interested in our business.  I wonder why I’m here and what the point is.  I am cold, wearing a sweater, but the factory manager is sweating through his shirt.  By the end of the tour his shoulders are more dry than the rest of him but that’s fixed as soon as we get back outside in the monsoon that has started.  I am tired – it’s all I can do to finish up the tiny bit of work that needed to be done.

 

 

 

 

I was fascinated by all the building that is going on in the countryside. These massive structures are everywhere. It seems that China is working on a relocation program where farmers and peasants will be moved to these high-rise apartments. I’m not sure that’s going to work out.

Some had seen better days.

Finally, we leave.  We head back to Hong Kong, cross the border and arrive an hour earlier than expected.  The driver had outdistanced the rain and was making the most of it.  I’m sure he was irritated that his Saturday was being spent driving around China.  This hour was an unexpected gift as I finished up my last recap very quickly (I had been working on it in the car on the way back)!  I went down to the lobby and used my second “free drink” coupon on a glass of wine while I watched the 8:00 light show in Victoria Harbor.  What to do for dinner?  I looked at the lobby menu.  I really didn’t want a club sandwich or french fries, I wanted food; Good Food.

Spoon by Alain Ducasse is one of three Michelin-starred restaurants in the Intercontinental Hotel.  It was to Spoon that I went and I made up for the past gastronomic abstinence with total gluttony…  First: a litchi martini.  Then, bottle of sparkling water (because, well, why not?) then the chef sent out three different types of appetizers.  I was pretty much done after the appetizers but I thought it would be pretty stinky to just say “thanks for the free food!” and split.  So, I ordered a pasta dish and a glass of wine. After that I looked at the dessert menu just to be polite.  I was quite stuffed so I just ordered a glass of desert wine (because, well, why not?) and then the chef sent out cherry sorbet and some sort of cherry pastry since it was cherry season. Oh yes, and home made marshmallows, chocolates and macaroons.  I couldn’t help but eat it.  I felt it would be rude to let it go unappreciated.  The chocolates and macaroons were packaged up for me in a delightful box to go.  I was full of food and alcohol by the time I left.  It was lovely!

home made marshmallows, chocolate covered cherries, and some of the macaroons.

I lost 3 lbs in China and I’m pretty sure that meal more than made them up.  Moral of the story: eat at Spoon.

I got up at 5:30 on Sunday morning to be at the airport by 7:00.  I had booked a car from the hotel to take me there because I didn’t want to deal with a taxi (one death-defying taxi ride was enough for this trip).  Also, I felt that between the sex hotel, delayed flights, and missing my entire weekend I shouldn’t have to wrangle with a taxi cab at 6:15 in the morning.  The car was there, waiting.  It was lovely.

Check in was fine, customs was fine, immigration was the standard question with the standard answer (yes, this is really me) and I had two hours to spare before my flight.  I went to the Cathay lounge and had a lovely breakfast of a giant plate of noodles, some tea, some sparkling water, more tea, more noodles, some dim sum and a cappuccino. I was even able to iChat with my Better Half and his family on the other side of the world.  Technology is amazing.

The flight home was great.  I slept most of the way, watched some movies, slept more, ate a little, and landed in Gotham just a few hours after I left.  It really is remarkable to fly half way around the world in only 14 hours.

Thus ends my China trip saga.  I am now in a situation where I probably won’t travel to China (unless it’s on my own dime) so goodbye, lovely Intercontinental Hotel!

On the flip side… goodbye, other people who make my schedules, encourage me to eat things I don’t want to and usher me around like I have never been outside The Compound.

Goodbye, bosses who are never happy.

Goodbye, unrealistic expectations.

Goodbye, anxiety.

Hello, New Chapter.

Bryant Park. Because, well, why not?

little girl in Gotham in China, part 1

Two weeks ago I traveled to Hong Kong and China for my job.  This is not the first time I’ve been; in fact, the number of times I’ve been is approaching the double-digits.  I actually had to add new pages to my passport because there weren’t any more blank pages for my China Visa, which was an adventure in itself but not post-worthy.  Everyone is fully aware of government bureaucracy…

This is the first time, however, that I’ve had almost zero down time on my trip.  There’s usually a day or so – like a tiny reward – in a trip filled with hours and hours of intense work, weird food and making myself understood very clearly.  Communication is key and, of course, being a privileged American, I expect everyone to speak English fluently.*  

Here was my schedule on this trip:

Tuesday: fly out of NYC in the early morning.  Yes, I flew Business Class on Cathay Pacific.  Yes, it is awesome.

Wednesday: arrive in Hong Kong.  Go through customs and immigration.  Try to look like my passport picture.** Get to the hotel around 5pm.  Have some dinner.  Fall into bed.  

Thursday: Thursday was a big day and a traumatic day for my jet-lagged psyche.  I’m going to need some space…

(Note: when I travel to HK I get to stay at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kowloon.  This is Not A Bad Thing.  There are 3 Michelin-rated restaurants in the hotel, for heaven’s sake.  It has a fantastic view of the Hong Kong harbor from the Lobby.  I have zero complaints about the Intercon and would live there if I could.  I also know that this is a pipe dream and a lot of people work very hard to keep me blissful while I’m there.  I pay for my indulgence, just wait…)  

I was treated to a lovely sunset when I arrived in Hong Kong.

Thursday morning I wake up well before the alarm at 5am.  Go to the Hong Kong airport.  Go through Hong Kong customs and immigration.  Try to look like my passport picture.  Take a flight to Xiamen.  Get studied with scrutiny by Chinese immigration and customs.  Try to look like my passport picture.  Meet the people I am traveling with.  Get into a car and drive for an hour.  Stop at the most rinky-dink fancy restaurant you can think of for lunch.  Please work with me on my painfully detailed description: walk up a crumbling staircase.  Inside, imagine the doorway is 7:00 on the face of a clock, dirty mops and buckets are along the wall at 9:00.  At 12:00 are small windows that look out onto a muddy river (I have no idea which river).  To our right, at 6:00 is a picture menu; each picture is about a foot wide, laminated in peeling plastic and placed on a very large board.  Beyond the extensive menu board, at 5:00, are stacks of tanks holding every kind of sea-creature imaginable – and some that I’ve subsequently had nightmares about.  At 3:00 is the open kitchen where men and women wearing rubber boots, gloves and aprons are going to cook our lunch for us.  They eye me.  There is a long consultation among the people I’m traveling with about what we should eat.  I tell them I’m allergic to fresh-water fish (which is true).  I show them my epi-pen.  They take it seriously.  There is more consultation.  I review the pictures on the menu.  There is a picture of a soup with two sea-horses floating in it.  I lose what little appetite I had and imagine how someone eats a seahorse.  I feel ill.  We climb the grand, curving staircase that’s positioned at 2:00 and proceed along the balcony to one of the private rooms where people entertain in grand style in China.  I try not to look too closely at the algae growing in the corner.  The air conditioner is fighting a losing battle.  The stained, floor-length tablecloth is covered by plastic.  I sit, hang my bag on my knee, and try not to think about what’s under the table. My host tells me that I should wash my dishes first in tea.  This is a first for me.  I do so, washing the chopsticks, the bowl and the glass in the hot tea that is then poured into a slop bowl.  The first dish arrives.  I ask what it is.  There is a lot of consultation of iPhones and translator software.  They tell me that there is no english word.  I smile and take a tiny piece; I am the guest of honor.  More dishes arrive.  I ask what they are.  I am told some things that I want to forget.  I take more tiny pieces; I don’t recognize anything.  A fish arrives and smiles at me.  I remind them that I will die if this fish comes from a river.  They assure me it doesn’t.  I take a tiny piece.  I explain that I’m not hungry (this is true). However, I am the guest of honor and I must eat; they load more things into my bowl.  I perfect the art of shredding stuff with my chopsticks and putting it onto the plate as if it were bones.  Some sort of spare rib thing arrives with brown iceberg lettuce to wrap it in.  The host carefully selects the fattiest piece for me.  I smile.  Soup arrives.  I don’t mind soup; I can eat soup.  Soup is easy.  I overlook the very odd things floating in it and take a sip of broth.  It is the most bitter thing I have ever tasted; like pucker-your-tongue bitter.  I ask what type of soup it is; abalone with bitter melon.  I look more closely at the floaty stuff: it appears that some fist-sized abalone were pulled out of the fish-tank, plunked into some chicken broth and some bitter melon added for yumminess.  There is a slight layer of scum and some green things floating in it.  I… Just… Cant…  I apologize and say that I’m very jet-lagged as I watch my companions pick up fleshy abalone with chopsticks and bite into them.  I’m sure there are worse things, but at that moment, I can’t think of anything…  We get back into the car and drive for another half hour to the factory where I will actually do work.  It is the dragon boat festival so there are boats on another muddy river that we cross.  The traffic is stopped.  

dragon boats

I just want to get to work and get everything over with.  We finally make it to the factory about 1:00.  We work until 6:30 when the factory closes.  We (there are now 11 of us) get into 2 cars and drive an hour back to the hotel where we’re going to spend the night.  Apparently the other hotel in this town does not have air conditioning and so we are going to stay in the new hotel.  Cool. New hotel.  Not cool.  Sex hotel.  What, you ask?  Just wait…

The area is known for stone cutting.  If you have seen a granite or marble slab it has probably come from this town.  There is stone everywhere.  In the hotel the floors and walls and ceiling were inlaid with stone; the lobby was basically a big stone vault.  There was a Ferrari outside the hotel and some sort of fancy roped-off three-wheeled motorcycle thing.  This hotel must be where the Stone Lord Swells go to live it up and party.  I had 10 minutes to put my luggage in my room and meet everyone for dinner on the 3rd floor.  Ok.  The first impression was that my room is dark and pretty dismal.  

Nothing says “class” like red flower petals in the toilet.

I put my suitcase on the suitcase rack and place my backpack on top of it.  (Please note, in any questionable hotel, do not ever put your bags on the floor or the bed.  Just don’t.)  I meet everyone on the third floor for dinner.  I am the guest of honor.  Again.  We meet in another private room where there is a sitting area with throne-like chairs, a small divider and an enormous table with a lazy-susan in the middle and two glass dragons on it.  

Brothel meets Communism.

The industrial lighting is dim, efficient and makes everyone look slightly green.  I am asked to sit in the most throne-like chair and spend my time trying to figure out what people are talking about***.  I sit, smiling like a nun with dementia, until we were told it was time for dinner.  Wine was ordered.  My glass was never empty.  

The dinner table.

Dinner was a seemingly endless parade of terrifying dishes meant to show my status as guest of honor.  Thank you so much but I am still not hungry.  More and more food is put into my bowl.  Why am I not eating? Don’t I like it?  What would I like?  Nothing, really, everything is wonderful, I’m just jet-lagged…  People from the factory don’t know what this means.  There is a lot of explanation.  I do my best to do the chopstick shredding technique from lunch.  More wine is ordered.  My host proposes a toast.  My glass is filled again.  The only sounds are air conditioner, silence and slurping.  No music…  A dish of steamed shrimp is brought out and placed in front of me.  These are not small shrimp.  However, they are beautifully arranged in concentric circles, their antennae waving like tiny flags in the air-conditioned breeze.  I take one.  Two more are put into my bowl.  The best way to eat these is to pop the whole thing into your mouth and spit out anything you can’t chew up.  This is not my way.  I cut the head off with my spoon and carefully pull off the shell with my fingers.  The longer it takes me to eat something the less I have to eat.  Everyone is watching me.  I smile.  Someone else proposes a toast. Rice is brought out in individual dishes.  Oh dear; the clams and mussels weren’t washed all that well before being thrown into the rice.  I pick.  I sip my wine.  Another toast is proposed; no one translates into English but I get the gist: Let’s have fun and drink wine for free on a Thursday.  Please let this meal be over; I have hours of work ahead of me…  Fruit is brought out; finally.  It is litchi season.  I get a tutorial in how to peel them since I am doing it wrong.  A plate of deep-fried dough is brought out.  Please stop.  They ask me if I want more wine.  No, thank you, really…

I get back to my room and immediately start up my computer.  No wireless.  Fine.  I plug it into the wall and connect remotely to my work server. It’s 10:00 pm.  I am supposed to write a recap of the work I did today along with pictures.  I try to plug in to the outlet and realize that I only have an adaptor for Hong Kong, not for China.  I have 72% power.  Ok, I will work fast.  About midnight I get an e-mail from my boss reminding me that I’m supposed to turn in a recap and that it is very important that I do this daily and that she is disappointed that I haven’t sent it yet, blah, blah, blah.  My stress level is rising.  I am almost finished when there is a warning that my computer will hibernate soon.  I have 12% power.  I try to send my recap. My computer hibernates.  Panic.  I go downstairs and bring my Hong Kong wall adaptor.  It is 1am.  The front desk is staffed by 6 girls; there are two men checking in.  They see me. All the girls begin helping the men.  No one makes eye contact with me.  Everyone moves away toward the other end of the giant stone desk.  I move down too.  They are now crowded at the far end and no one is acknowledging I’m there.  I try to get anyone’s attention by saying excuse me and waving.  I have the attention of both men.  This is not going well.  I am tired.  I begin dropping my Hong Kong outlet adaptor on the counter.  Over and over and over.  The girls look at me.  I say hello?  They look away.  I start slamming the adaptor on the counter, the sound echoing off the stone walls.  The men look away.  One of the girls has to walk past me to get to the credit card machine.  I now know the meaning of belligerent.  I hold out my adaptor in front of her.  She giggles.  I say “this is for Hong Kong; I need one for China”.  She giggles some more.  Another girl comes up. I say the same thing.  I point to a plug and mimic plugging the adaptor in to the wall.  I hold out my room card and wave some Hong Kong money.  They are both giggling.  I start shouting.  I am very tired.  I realize I have no recourse.  I can’t move hotels; I can’t make threats; I can’t get China money because I don’t know where an ATM is and I don’t speak the language.  I can do nothing.  I slam the adaptor once more on the counter for good measure and stalk away.  At the elevator is a girl who is dressed in a pink ruffled polka-dot dress, black high heels, white knee socks and a french maid hat.  I stare at her, she stares at me.  She is wearing a name tag – it says “Candy”.  I get into the elevator with two other girls and one man.  He is smoking a cigarette.  I am on the 18th floor and I could climb the stairs faster than this elevator moves.  There are smokey mirrors on the walls and ceiling, the floor is stone.  I think about how much faster the elevator could go if there weren’t stone in it.  One of the girls bites the boy on the arm; he squeezes the other one on the ass.  I wonder if I have died and this is purgatory. I get back to my room and try to figure out the phone.  

The long, dark hallway back to my room.

I almost pressed the “recreation” button.

How do I call the people I’m traveling with?  I don’t even bother with the front desk; I start pushing buttons and end up connecting with the right person.  I ask if she has a China adaptor.  I am sorry that it’s 1:30 in the morning but I have to send an e-mail.  She tells me to send it from the factory tomorrow.  I tell her that I absolutely have to send it tonight and I will come to her room to get it.  She says ok.  I finally send my e-mail at 2:00am.

I start to look around my room.  All is not well.  This add is beside the bed.  

um, yeah… beauty center.

I have a hard time believing it is for a spa.  Maybe “spa” translates from “whorehouse”.  

There is a mini bar beside the bed.  

A cornucopia of sex supplies. Reasonably priced.

I see a vibrating condom.  I am glad I haven’t taken off my shoes.  I carefully look at all the offerings in the sex mini bar.  I am grossed out, skeeved out and generally worked up.  It is now 3am.  I e-mail my Better Half who is sympathetic but tells me that there’s nothing I can do and to try to get some sleep.  I thoroughly inspect the bedding.  Stains are minimal and there’s nothing on the tiny edge where I’m going to lie down.  I dress in long knit pants, a long-sleeved t-shirt and long socks.  I tuck the pants into the socks.  I put the t-shirt that I wore on the plane over the pillow.  I turn the air conditioner up so that it’s warm in the room.  I lie down with my hands folded on my chest and pray that I don’t get an STD. Overreact much?  Yes.  Jet lag; that’s what.

This is the reassuring sign on the door regarding fire. Red star?

 

 

* This is sarcasm.  I try to learn a few words in Mandarin (if I’m in Hong Kong) or Cantonese (if I’m in China).  My pronunciation is great but I promptly forget whatever I’ve learned.  What can I say?  New York is 12 hours behind and it’s hard to catch my brain up…

** At every immigration desk the officer asked, “Is this you?”.  Um, yes…  

*** I have found that I can usually follow a conversation pretty well just by watching body language and picking up on the few english words thrown in.

Stairs, stairs, stairs, stairs, stairs…

New York City has an in-your-face quality that’s hard to define until you’ve been here and experienced it for yourself.  No one is as angry and pissed off as depicted in the movies.*  As much as it may seem, no one has a personal vendetta against you for being alive.**  There are actually genuinely Nice People here who will give you directions (when asked) or assist you if you are in dire straits.  However, The City is unrelenting.  The City will kick you in the face and tell you that you’re in the way.  The City has Stairs.

Stairs are everywhere here.  They are how you get from one subway platform to another.  They are how I get to my apartment.  There are 99 steps between where I get off the train and the street level of my office. Every.  Single. Morning.  They are at the doorways of shops.  They are at the entrances of bars. Stairs are the modus operandi of New York.

Can’t climb stairs?  Too bad.  The elevator has been used as a urinal by 17 homeless/drunk people.  The escalator is broken. Schlep.  Haul.  Herniate.

New York glares you in the eye and dares you to complain about the stairs.  To whom?  Good luck.  Anyone who looks official enough to complain to is definitely unofficial enough to tell you what you can do with your complaint.  Save your breath.  You’re going to need it for climbing the stairs.

*Disclaimer: there are a lot of New Yorkers.  I have not met all of them.

**Disclaimer 2: Okay, this is New York.  If it’s gonna happen, it’s probably gonna happen here.  And has happened.  And will happen again.  Statistically it’s not gonna happen to you.

 

I have attached these photos because it’s Spring and the tulips in the park by my apartment are incandescently beautiful.

playing the quiet game while commuting

One of the things that surprised me when I moved here is that commuting on the subway is quiet. The trains and platforms during rush hours are pretty darn silent. There are noises, of course.  The creaky train rumbling along century-old tracks.  The station announcements.  The safety or public service announcements:

“Ladies and gentlemen: it is up to you to keep our subway safe… If you see something, say something.”

“Ladies and gentlemen: be courteous.  On crowded trains please hold your backpacks and move to the center of the car…”

“Ladies and gentlemen: courtesy begins with you. If you see a pregnant, elderly or disabled person offer them your seat.”

“Ladies and gentlemen: a crowded train or platform is no excuse for an improper touch. Sexual harassment is a crime…” Um, wait, what??

Crowded trains are particularly quiet.  I think the added weight makes them less rumbly.  There are what feels like 500 people in a very confined space and no one is making eye contact, let alone speaking.  It’s eerily quiet.  Riders shuffle out of the cars and silently climb the stairs leading outside.  There are a lot of stairs.  Everywhere.  But that’s another post.

It’s rare that I hear people talking. But when I do…I listen.  Sometimes, like last night, it’s someone wearing headphones and singing in that off-key way people do when their music is too loud.  Sometimes it’s people having conversations with their fellow commuters.  Today I listened to a boy and girl discuss their photography school and how they are learning to use filters “to make it look different”.  I was in the middle of the car, they were at the doors, I could hear every word they said. 

The upshot is, if (on weekdays) you were to go into the subway system and start screaming, everyone would look at you. 

This fact is not true between 4pm on Friday and 4am on Monday.  This is when The City is overrun with people who have no problem talking, singing and/or shouting anywhere they are.  To anyone who has visited during this time (and has a memory of their visit): if a weekend or a major Holiday/Event is your experience you haven’t seen New York at her finest.  You have possibly caught her at her worst.

overheard Words on the Street

It’s been a while since I showed up here. So much has happened: my birthday day (which was awesome, btw), Super Storm Sandy (we only lost electricity, hot water, heat and cell phone service; we were blessed to be so lucky), Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the start of 2013, my better half’s birthday, Groundhog Day, Winter Storm Nemo, Valentine’s Day, a vacation in Mexico and here we are in mid march, with St. Patrick’s Day around the corner. Whew. My only excuse is that the days pass slowly but the months fly by…

One of the things about living in NYC is that there are very few places for personal conversations. Other than inside your apartment there are no private or enclosed spaces in which to talk about intimate things. If you are a New Yorker you have these conversations while you are walking down the street or while riding the subway. You talk loudly into your cell phone because reception is bad and there is always traffic noise. In effect, you don’t care because you can’t.

Here are some of my favorite overheards so far:
(Walking south on 6th Ave toward Houston):
Woman on cell phone: Oh, you mean that asshole? Did you know I used to be engaged to him?

(Walking south on 10th St. toward 7th Ave):
Girl: What do you want me to say?
Boy: Well, I’m just upset because this whole situation could have been avoided.
Girl: I’ve said I was sorry; what else do you want me to say?
Boy: You didn’t have to do it.
Girl (screaming): What do you want me to say?

(on the F train coming back from Brooklyn)
1st woman: Oh, honey, I’ve had all kinds of mental problems. I’ve been tested, too.
2nd woman: Well, my doctor told me I was crazy and need to be on drugs.
1st woman: Honey, I should be on so many drugs but I like hearing the voices.

(At the corner of Greenwich Ave and 10th St. on a Friday night):
Woman on cell phone: No sushi. I am way too hung-over fucked-up for sushi.

Getting’ Down in the Downeast, Pt 4

Dinner was in Bar Harbor at a restaurant that used to be a house. We sat at the bar in what used to be the parlor and ordered more locally brewed beer and more excellent food from what used to be a boy.
The very knowledgable bartender was doing a good job of fetching drinks and grub for the assortment of patrons bellied up around his little domain. He WAS doing a good job until a waitress (from another bar/restaurant) arrived and ordered “the same beer I had last time”. They were out of it, he told her, and put so much emotion into the phrase that I expected to see him wipe away a tear. She came back with, “Oh, I really liked that one…” Long pause. He tried to think of something so say. More pause. “Well, what do you think I should have?”. He started naming different options (their beer selection was extensive and he really was very knowledgable) while she looked at him blankly. She asked him what each one was and he gave thorough explantations.

In the mean time, while this little exchange was going on, my beer was dangerously low in my glass. My Better Half was done with his and the man to our left had finished his martini and was toying with the olive pick. The Distraction finally settled on something. Our man poured with care and consideration, obviously overcome with the gravity of the situation. They began to chat lightly of this and that; speaking of parties, of people being too drunk to find their way home, of mutual friends who had drank away their rent money and had to move in with other mutual friends. I thought that for all the imbibing she claimed to be doing she may have been the worlds most persnickety drunk.
I had expected that our formerly attentive drink-slinger would glance over to our little corner every once in a while but, no. I drained my glass and banged it on the bar. He was telling her an engaging story of how he had almost run over a bicyclist who was “checking her out” on Tuesday when she was walking to work. It was clear that The Almost Running Over was intentional, not accidental. I held out my glass: “Excuse me, can I have another beer?” The Distraction glared at me like I was interrupting a private conversation, which of course, I was… The Distracted seemed to notice that he was actually supposed to be working and Hopped To.
I’m all for budding romance and flirting and stuff but please don’t try to get laid while my glass is empty.
After dinner we bought a bottle of wine at a handy wine store next door. This bottle.

Dragon wine.
Notice the quaint wood stove in the background. Notice the rustic quilt.  We didn’t finish the wine.

Because it has a dragon on the label, of course.

We had the long, dark, desolate drive back to Dog Pee Heaven to look forward to. I felt that wine was in order to help me see the humor in the situation. We drove back and drove. And drove. The visions of spending another night climbing in and out of the bed valley (and then another night after that, which is what we had planned) made me feel cranky and anxious. I blame these feelings plus the following incidents on what happened next.
We got to our humble accommodations. The small parking lot was filled with giant SUVs. The Other Guests had arrived. Good thing the car was small. We maneuvered it behind Something Really Big and next to Something Even Bigger. We went inside and climbed the stairs to our room. All the other bedroom doors were closed. There was Someone in the bathroom. My anxiety increased. We borrowed a corkscrew from the kitchen downstairs. It had been raining on the drive home but had since stopped. I thought we should sit on our deck in the outdoor chairs and enjoy our wine. One chair was soaking wet and the other had a Major Hole in the seat. I perched myself as best I could away from the hole. It wasn’t very comfortable. My Better Half chose to stand. We sipped our wine out of plastic cups. Every time someone flushed the toilet it was audible from the pipe that was positioned at the edge of the deck. There was a lot of toilet flushing.
I suddenly had a Nervous Breakdown. I couldn’t stay any more. I wanted to pack up and drive to Portland and sleep at the airport. I wasn’t relaxed, this was not how vacation was supposed to be, vacation is supposed to be relaxing. I can’t take this. I want to go to Mexico or anywhere else where I can relax. I don’t want to spend my birthday here. I can’t take it. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow. And WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO IN THIS GOD-FORSAKEN PLACE?
My Better Half took all this quite calmly which is pretty remarkable since I sprung it on him without warning, while quite possibly speaking in Tongues.
We decided we would leave in the morning and just catch whatever flight we could back to NYC. Could we catch a flight to Mexico? I became a little more calm. The absurdity of what I was saying was starting to hit me but I didn’t care. I just wanted Out.
I took my turn in the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. I believe I held my breath the entire time (out of necessity). In that place and at that moment nothing was absurd except sharing a 2 foot wide bathroom with strangers and a bedroom with spiders; I felt I was the most rational person on the planet for insisting we leave.
In the morning we got up early, I hadn’t slept much and so neither of us slept much. Better Half went downstairs as I finished putting stuff in the suitcase. He came back up, “they don’t take cards; cash or check only”. He left, found the only ATM on the island and handed over a huge wad of cash. He had said that there was a minor emergency which made it necessary for us to return to New York (which wasn’t a lie; I was my own emergency).
I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I even skipped free breakfast of cold cereal, et al. The flight we were trying to get on left at 4 something so we had a lot of time to kill.
We drove back to Portland on the freeway because it was raining and grey skies and grey water and grey trees weren’t much fun to see. Also it was faster…
Portland in the rain wasn’t as much fun as Portland in the dry. There were still hoards of cruise ship passengers to contend with. We walked in the rain without an umbrella; I had gotten the idea that I wanted to buy some candles. I looked on Yelp. The was a shop that sold candles about 3 blocks away. This shop also sold blindfolds, nipple clamps and fuzzy handcuffs. Shopgirl explained that the candles could be used as massage oils, too. Interesting, but not the type of candles I was looking for. We left to explore other options and walked by a couple gazing in the window. She grabbed his arm; “Oh look! Penises!”
The next place yielded less exotic but more practical results: a balsam scented candle and a bayberry scented candle. Hand poured in Maine, claims the label.
We went back to the pub we had visited on our arrival and found that they had inexplicably changed the names of their beers. We sat and watched the rain make the harbor even wetter for as long as we could. We looked at the time; 2 hours before we should even think of being at the airport. We looked at the harbor. We looked at each others half-finished glasses. One can only drink so much beer before one starts to feel constantly full and irritable. I toyed with my phone, looking for places to stay in Mexico. My Better Half looked at the available seats on the flight. Down to two empty and someone was ahead of us on the list.
We left in search of a coffee shop where we could pass some more time. Up a couple of blocks and to the left was a place with fair-trade organic coffee. They also had a lot of people sitting in their comfortable chairs, using their free wifi and generally taking up all the space. We ordered coffee and sat next to a man who was asleep on a couch. He looked like this may be his home. Every once in a while he woke up to ask if it was still raining. An ironically hipsterish dude who seemed to have been writing a screenplay assured him it was. Neither of us finished our coffee, we were too full of beer and anxiety to pack anything else in.
We walked back to the car, jumping over puddles. Rain poured off my hat when I looked down. Water was beading up on my borrowed coat. Thank goodness for my borrowed coat…

I navigated us back to the airport in an altogether different way than we had come. The airport seemed to have moved a good 15 miles beyond where it was when we left it. We drove past historic sites, important houses, parks full of fountains and statuary. I was afraid we were driving to some other Portland International Jetport; say, in Portland Oregon or maybe Nova Scotia. We did find our way eventually, dropped off the car, and walked to security.

Security was notable in that it was so unusual. Let me give you background information: my Better Half is a Seasoned Traveler. He Does This For A Living and it’s always the same: if he is In Uniform he can walk through the death radiation machine metal detector wearing his shoes and all things that he has to wear to do his job. If he is Not In Uniform he has to strip down like everyone else and pay tribute to the TSA. However, no matter what, with a Crew Badge he gets to walk past the guys checking boarding passes and IDs. His badge is Both in One. This time, though, he was delayed when he showed his Badge to the ID-checker. The guy didn’t want to let him through without a boarding pass. He actually had to call his supervisor over and double check. Don’t get many Pilots in Portland? First day on the job? Forgot to study the Process And Procedure Manual? Usually I’m the one getting the TSA stink-eye. In Newark they always tell me that I have to stand in line with everyone else and I can’t sneak through behind a crew member. My Better Half has to assure them that I am traveling with him and I’m not some crazy line-jumper looking for a good opportunity.

There are two perks to being a Pilot. The first is that you can fly free-ish if there are seats available (and no one senior to you wants them and the moon is in the correct phase and the gate agent takes pity on you and you dress nicely and are polite to everyone and everything). The second perk is that you and the people with you are able to jump the line in security. I’ve gotten death-stares many times because we just sidle up through the crew line and save time by not doing the old roll-aboard shuffle through the twisting, turning elastic ropy area. However, you passengers with actual seats aboard an actual plane, please note that the benefits are limited to these two things and what seems like a Really Good Gig is, in fact just a big pain in the ass.

We got to out gate and waited. We didn’t get seats so we had the privilege of waiting around for 3 more hours for the next flight. At least they had free wifi. Oh, and rocking chairs.

We discussed our options. I decided that I just wanted to get back to our apartment and Mexico, while fun, would be more of the same experience that we were having at the moment (the watching-the-plane-take-off-without-us scenario). We got on the next one and made it back to NYC about 11 pm.

I can look back on this now and laugh but it seemed a lot less funny at the time.
The really great news – birthday wise – was that my actual birthday day was so much fun!
Next post will have much less psychotic behavior, I promise!

Gettin’ Down in the Downeast, Pt 3

My bright spot was Acadia National Park and I have plenty of documentation to prove it!

Now we’re talking!

We drove to Bar Harbor (which, if we ever return, will be our number 1 place to go) and had lunch at a lovely cafe which had locally brewed beer AND blueberry pie!

You can Harbor your Bars of Gold at Bar Harbor Bank.

This place made up for the previous two meals and restored my faith in Maine gastronomy.  We were able to sit outside in the sunlight as we enjoyed our beer and sandwiches.  And the pie!  Oh my, the pie!  If I had known about the pie I would have skipped the sandwich and just ordered a whole pie for myself.  My spirits were lifted and my tummy was full.  However, as fun and cozy and comfortable as we were, we couldn’t spend the day lounging around on the deck and eating; we had a National Park to go see!

This is what was waiting for us after lunch.

Back in the car, we navigated to a park entrance with help from the map on my trusty iphone.  There’s a two-lane, one-way loop that runs around the perimeter and we drove on it.  And drove.  And drove.  I looked up the Rules Of The Park on my phone.  One of the Rules was that you must have a permit to be in the park any time you’re in the park.  Ok.  Where do we get one of these Permits?  Answer: at a gatehouse.  Ok.  Where are the Gatehouses?  Answer: on the road.  We drove some more on the road that was conspicuously Gatehouse-free.  I tucked the $20 fee in the sun visor – ready to wave it as proof of our good intentions if some ranger were to pull us over with flashing lights, brandishing handcuffs and fines and threats of jail time and trespassing violations.  Our brush with The Law the night before had rattled me.

We drove some more and began to get annoyed.  We are used to California where you are charged a fee before you even get to the boundary of the Park.  “You there! You can see our Beautiful Scenery and are breathing our Fresh Air; that will be $27.43 per person plus 8% tax.”  And, of course, there are additional fees to actually get into the park, and for the privilege of using the restroom and hiking on a trail and taking a picture…

I had to pay a fee to take this picture in the Sequoia National Park.
This is not a true story.

This super-secret, must-have, invisible park Permit was a little unnerving.  Doesn’t Maine and the National Parks System want our money?  Are we being set-up in an elaborate plan that catches visitors unawares then imposes fines so even more money can be made?

We finally made it to a gatehouse and realized how it works: gatehouses are guarding the stuff that people want to see.  There were no spectacular vistas or crashing waves or dizzying cliffs where we had been driving.  Got it.  We got in the slow-moving line with the Chatty Ranger and paid the fee. Phew…  I felt better immediately.

Chatty Ranger told us that the place we had picked out on the map was no good and possibly closed.  Oh.  “Go down this road a ways until you get to Sand Beach*.  There’s some good hiking there”.  He said this because we told him we wanted to Hike.  I think he also said this because he saw our little Wimpola car and figured we were Yuppie Types who had no real ability to actually Hike.  Whatever, Chatty.

Driving down the road a ways we found Sand Beach.  We pulled into a lot that had 50 tour busses in it and about 500 cars (or so it seemed).  There was an empty parking space next to a beat-up SUV with a couple who were pulling out a veritable wardrobe of different types of Outdoor/Survival/Hiking clothing from the back seat.  They eyed our car.  I eyed their zip-off pants.  I came to the conclusion that People Who Wear Zip-Off Pants Are Hardcore.  The Man was doubly Hardcore as his pants zipped off at shorts-level and at capri-level.  I decided that I definitely did not want this man to do any sort of pants-conversion.

I grabbed my camera and camera backpack.  My Better Half grabbed his sunglasses and handed mine to me (as I get older I’m becoming more forgetful…).  We walked down the gently sloping stairs to the sandy beach area that was covered with people.  Through magical knowledge (or maybe because he had read a sign) my Better Half told me that we should look for a stone stair off the beach that leads to a hiking trail.  Ok.

We went to the right.  There were little boys throwing rocks into the water.  No stairs.

We went left and eventually came to a stream that cut through the beach which was forded using some handily placed rocks.  As I was walking across on the rocks an older couple on the far side shouted at me to be careful.  They kept shouting until I got to the other side.  Their animation and general demeanor distracted me so much that I almost fell in, which may have been their goal.  The woman said that she took her shoes off and tried to walk across but fell in anyway.  Hmmmmm…  While we were talking with them about the merits of testing each rock before actually putting all your weight on it, Hardcore Couple passed by heading for The Stone Stair.

We followed them, though not too closely (hiking is one of those things that is Not Fun in groups), up the steps that were cut into the rock.  It was beautiful scenery to be able to look through the trees at the mountains, the beach and the islands beyond…

The trail was well-marked with blue dashes that pointed the correct way to go.  Some of the dashes were on trees and some were on the rock trail.  I was initially annoyed that someone had painted on the trees until I figured out that they were trail markers.  Oh. Sometimes I’m not very bright.

We came to a place where the view was spectacular but only about 5 minutes away from the start of the trail.  Above us, on a ledge, were Hardcore, eating their lunch.  Huh.  I amended my previous conclusion: Zip-Off Pants Make You Look Hardcore.

We hiked on.  A woman came huffing down the path and told us in no uncertain terms that we should take the LEFT hand trail at the top of the mountain.  “The right hand path is very hard and we had to double-back and now I’m just completely exhausted.”  This was the type of Hiking we were looking for!  We took the right hand trail.

The Map of the park clearly shows the parking lot.

The trail was beautiful, running along sea-side cliffs with waves crashing against them, through rocky meadows, through birch forests.

There were some places where I had to scramble, using my hands, but this is because I’m so thoroughly Non-Hardcore that I was hiking in tennis shoes.  I was also wearing a jacket that belongs to my Better Half throughout this trip. Historically I’ve been more interested in clothing that Looks Good instead of clothing that Serves a Functional Purpose.  Don’t judge.

This is how little girl in Gotham rolls when Hiking.

I kept hoping we would see a moose.  That would have made my Maine experience complete (you know, the stereotypical trifecta of Lobster/Blueberries/Moose).  I talked so much about moose (and imagining that I heard one rustling in the underbrush) that I had the badness scared out of me by a chipmunk.  Yes – and stop judging – a Scary Chipmunk.  We heard a really loud yelping noise and I must have jumped a foot in the air.  The noise was coming from a little brown bastard sitting on a rock to our right.  He then broke into what sounded like laughter and we had to laugh, which made him laugh more.

This is not Scary Chipmunk or, maybe, it is…

He was our guide on the trail for about 100 yards and kept trying to scare us again.  I was wise to his antics, though…  (I have a minor phobia-thing about squirrels and have always imagined they’re Out To Get Me.  Chipmunks have always seemed cute and harmless.  This little guy was a practical joker and, for 1 second, was more scary than any squirrel in the lower 48 states).

We made it back to the car without any further mishaps and continued on our one-way loopy road.  We passed the sign for Thunder Hole (a big attraction with lots of tour busses lining the road) and the sign made me laugh so hard that I was crying.  Thank you, whomever made that sign.

Thank you for taking this picture. I would have taken my own but I was incapacitated by laughter.

We drove to the place where you can get tea and popovers.  It is, in fact, the only place to get anything to eat in the park but it’s famous for tea and popovers.  We didn’t partake in this ritual so it’s purely hearsay on my part.  There’s a lawn area that looks over a pond which reflects the Bubble mountains.**

Gettin’ Down in the Downeast, Pt 2

There are no pictures in this post.  I didn’t document these events; you will just have to take my word for it.

Our accommodations were far, far removed from civilization.  The drive from the main road took us 45 minutes and there was probably another half hour to of any population center of appreciable size.  We were stuck in a town with no stop-lights and, as will be described, two options for food.

We were  in a bed and breakfast-type place which looked Victorian-charming on the fancy, music-playing website but, in fact, was run down.  It had a decidedly dog pee smell.  Our hostess was an ex-hippie from California – she arrived in Maine in 1973 in a school bus that had been converted into living quarters – who seemed a little too eager to hear news of the outside world.  We looked at the bedroom upstairs; ours was an attic room with a deck and a view of some street lamps and a tree (though it was possible to glimpse the harbor through the branches of the tree).  Nice enough.  A few spiders were in residence in our room but they were small and pretty high on the walls.  However, the bathroom (that was as wide as my shoulders and three steps long) was shared with the 3 other bedrooms.  A shared, dinky tiny bathroom with, potentially, 6 other people.  What?  What?  I either didn’t do enough research or the fancy, music-playing website glossed over this fact.  To be fair, there was a colossal bathroom on the first floor that had once been a bedroom.  This, too, was shared.  As an added consideration one had the privilege of walking down the stairs and through the dining room to get to it.  Sanitary.  Private.  Fun.

Ok.  Stuck with no other options for miles if we even knew where to begin to look.  Also, we are Roughing It, right?  Rustic Charm and all that?  Also, we were the only guests that night so I filed the bathroom problem in my mind under the heading of Things to Deal With Later.

“For dinner, we have two choices”, said our hostess.  “There’s the upscale place or the locals joint.  The fancy place has very good locally brewed beer and excellent food; I suggest you go there the first night”.  Seeing the wisdom of what seemed to be sound advice we opted for Fancy.  Beer sounded like something that would help the situation immensely.  I actually could have used something with a higher content of Let’s Remember That Roughing It Is Fun but, beer would do.

We walked toward the Fancy place, stopping to watch the activity at the warehouse where boats were being unloaded.  We passed a little jetty-type thing with a monument.  We read the inscription on the lobster fisherman statue (it read something like: This is a statue of a Lobster Fisherman).  Neat.

“Upscale” has never been more loosely used.  The restaurant is situated in a large, square building, up a flight of crooked wooden steps.  Half the building was devoted to Groceries (as well as bait, lobster traps and beer, according to the signs in the windows) the other half was the Fancy Place, the front decorated with neon signs and sticky letters noting their hours.  They closed at 8:30.  It was 7:30.  We looked at each other and remarked that it was good we had chosen to dine early.  We opened the door and went in.  A man was in the foyer area waiting to be seated.  What appeared to be a hostess was doing her busy best to arrange coffee cups and saucers into a pyramid by the coffee machine.  A waitress hurried past, shouting greetings to a group of 3 women who had come in behind us.  “We know our table!”, they bellowed back.  Apparently the Fishemen’s Wives have regular dinners here at a regular table.  I peered over the divider and saw a group of maybe 10 women, gussied up in their going-out best, who looked like they were going to do some serious damage to the food and drink offerings.

Eventually the man in front of us was seated.  We waited.  I began to worry that we were running out of time.  The waitress said she would be with us shortly.  The Hostess was still working on the Great Coffee Cup Pyramid.  We looked at each other.  There was no place else to go because, after-all, if this was the Fancy Place…

We were seated in the back by the windows that looked out onto the built-on deck.  Also, we were seated by the bar where a group of local Toughs had gathered, drinking strong things out of plastic cups.  Our waitress handed us the menus and asked if we would like a drink.  “Yes!”, I must have shouted because that’s how I felt.  I looked at the beer list.  Lots of stuff on tap and I chose something at random.  “Oooh, sorry, we’re out of draft beer.”  All of it?  Ok.  My Better Half ordered something from the bottle list.  “Oooh, sorry, we’re out of that.”  Ok.  He tried again.  Same response.  Turns out they had Michalob Ultra and Bud Light.  NOT what I had in mind.  I was tempted to order one of the Something Stronger things I could see being poured into plastic cups.

We looked over the menu as the other patrons looked us over.  Lunch had been a lobster roll so we weren’t hungry for that, plus, we really weren’t very hungry since we normally eat dinner 2 hours later…  They were also Out of a lot of things on the menu, which narrowed our choices for us.  We settled on cups of chowder to start.  It tasted like Cooky had dumped a gallon of cream into a pot, added some under-cooked potatoes, some fish parts and, for good measure, thrown in a handful of sand.  We saw lots of Lobster Dinners going by: a huge steamed lobster accompanied by fries and melted butter and bread and maybe some sad iceberg drenched in creamy dressing.  This was for One Person.  However, that was one less person who would be staring at us as they tucked into their feed…  We felt conspicuous.

Instead of the feast of a Lobster Dinner we had chosen to share steamed clams and mussels.  We had also chosen Traditional Style (with Butter and Broth) for the preparation.  Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls: Do NOT choose Traditional Style.  The bowl arrived.  The bivalves were mostly dry.  Another plate arrived containing a small metal dish of melted butter and a bowl of milky white liquid.  We were confused.  We looked at each other.   Rubes that we are, the “broth” was actually sea-water that was released from said mollusks as they steamed.  No seasoning.  No dried parsley sprinkled for color.  The dish consisted of: Clams.  Mussels.  Water.  Sand.  Sand was an important ingredient.  What appeared to be pepper in the bottom of the dish was actually sand.  The clams had so much sand in them that we figured they hadn’t been rinsed after being pulled from their quiet homes in the tide flats and thrown into the steamer pot.  I tried washing one in the “broth”.  Sand, after being steamed, is sticky. We did our valiant best.  We ordered more beer.  I tried not to be a snooty New Yorker.  I grew up on a farm.  I can Do This.

It must have been a perverse masochistic streak that made me order dessert.  The sign in the foyer had listed Blueberry Pie (along with such unusual offering as Tollhouse Pie, Toffee Pie and Grape-Nut Pudding). Maine = blueberries.  I’ve heard they are good and I’m always game to Try Something New.  Of course, they were Out of blueberry pie and our server offered me Tollhouse Pie as a substitute.  As he (original waitress had been absorbed into the crowd at the bar and was doing Tequila shots) went down the available list I heard blueberry/raspberry crumble.  That would do.  It has blueberries in it so it might be kind of the same.  There was a reason they weren’t Out of blueberry/raspberry crumble.

The Bar Scene was increasing in vigor as cooks, dishwashers, Pyramid Hostess, fishermen, Fishermen’s Wives, sons, fathers and daughters crowded ’round to belt back stiff ones.  The ladies had martini glasses for their drinks (or shot glasses) but the men-folk stuck with plastic.  No one was drinking beer.  There were lots of trips outside to smoke on the built-on deck.  There was loud of talk of boats, engines and winches.  One waitress talked to a girl she went to high-school with about her 2-year old daughter’s potty-training problems.  The Don Juan of the bunch was putting his best moves on a girl in very tight pants, his Hooters t-shirt a glowing orange.  A daughter had to intervene after her father nearly took a header into the bar, tripping over his rubber boots; she asked for a refill of his drink and gave him her bar stool.  I flagged our waiter down after he did a surreptitious shot by the dirty-dish pan.  Check please.

We walked around the town.  It took about 10 minutes and the full moon was very bright.  Suddenly a blinding light shown in our eyes: someone had called the only Policeman in town to drive by slowly and blind us with his spotlight.  With his stare he let us know that he knew we were Up To No Good and we had better Cut It Out.  Feeling dangerous and sneaky, we returned to the relative safety of our accommodations.

Ok.  Pee-smelling, spider filled, dinky bathroom home sweet home.  We made do as best we could.  The bed was decidedly hammock-y and I spent most of the night either trying not to roll down the hill or hauling myself back to the top.  It was very quiet.  We could hear some sort of bouy or fog bell every few seconds but that was it.  The quiet, however, did not improve my sleep.  I dreamt of spiders.

In the morning there was the dinky-tiny bathroom to look forward to; the shower stall was so small that I banged my elbows on the walls as I was washing my hair and couldn’t actually get out from under the water so I felt like I was seconds from drowning the whole time.  The shower caddy fell down and the 7 industrial sized bottles of various shampoos, conditioners and body washes (complimentary for guest use) tipped out onto the floor.  My towel smelled like mildew.  I’ve had better bathing experiences.

Breakfast was cold cereal, yogurt and english muffins.  My Rustic Adventure needed a bright spot.

Gettin’ Down in the Downeast

My birthday was last week and we were on vacation.  We try to plan a special vacation during this time because kids are in school, the weather is usually beautiful and it’s my birthday (duh…). I even celebrated a Big One in Paris a few years back so I’m pretty committed to this whole birthday/celebration/travel thing…

Yup, that Paris.

This year we took a trip to Maine because

1. it’s close

2. it’s Fall and the leaves are changing

the leaves are changing; it must be fall

3. we had always talked about going there

4. it’s less expensive than, say, Denmark or Amsterdam.  (Recent events have put a strain on our checking account that are sending shockwaves through my heretofore wonton spending habits.  My attempts at frugality are only proving painful and not actually showing appreciable results as yet.) 

So, in an attempt to be spendthrifty we hopped on a plane to Portland with our flight benefits (having a Pilot for a Life Partner Better Half is only fun when there are seats available; otherwise the free flights are usually overshadowed by the sheer irritation of it all).  We rented a Fiat 500 – an “economy” car that was really, really Fun to Drive and set off on our Downeaster Adventure. 

Fiat 500. Good for driving. Not good for hauling.
My carry-on suitcase and 1 itty-bitty backpack filled up the trunk.

The sun was bright as we tootled over to Downtown Portland. 

I’m guessing this is what Portland used to look like since it was painted on the side of a building.

A beautiful, salty city with lots of history and interesting things; it was also overrun with lots of cruise-ship passengers of a geriatric nature. 

I love this narrow building!

We walked at our normal clip, weaving in and out of the slower movers, trying to get out of the crowds (New Yorkers walk appreciably faster than most of the rest of the country).  But, alas, we realized they were everywhere and seemed to spring up on all sides as we stopped to look at something or take a picture, too eager not to miss something. 

I took this picture. I was in a crowd.

This exasperated my Life Partner Better Half. I detected a certain spirit in the air of Not Having Fun.  We stopped at a Pub and soothed the irritation with the best salve I know: alcohol. 

This is what it looked like before I drank it.

By 11am our empty glasses were hitting that copper-topped bar.  A basket of fried mushrooms was ordered.  A second round was ordered.  Then my Life Partner Better Half realizes that we are not in NYC and we actually have to drive to our destination.  Oops.  Slow down there, Suzy. 

We walked back to the car and charted our drive.  Destination: a small town on a small island off the coast.  Our way: as near to the coastline as we could make it.  Sounds fun, right?  It was!  The drive was lovely and we saw loads of interesting things

We stood in line for about 1 minute. I did not come all the way from NYC to stand in line; I can do that here.

and beautiful little towns and very pretty boats.

This was in a harbor in a town that started with a “C”. It’s not a clue, I just don’t remember…

It took a while and we had to stop a few times to stretch our legs.

Make of This Picture what you will…

I found out that my iphone is worthless in some areas; I had an oddly irrational feeling of panic when I couldn’t “find” us on the map.  What do you mean, No Service?  We aren’t in a Subway tunnel we are Outside!  (How quickly one forgets – the No Service thing used to happen to me all the time in rural Ohio). 

I need a Young Bridge and an Old Bridge! I need a Young Bridge and an Old Bridge!

However, no major mishaps and we arrived at our destination just as the sun was setting. 

more pictures