A Day in the Life, Volume 3

A day in the life (3/3)
In the afternoon, whether we are exploring, hiking or on a bus, we are typically at work planning. We have found overland travel to be very strategic. We may want to do some backcountry here, but if we have to spend four days in transit going the wrong eventual direction is it worth it? We have done OK all in all but have made a couple big mistakes. Like being in the Ukraine a few days before our flight left from Istanbul, over a thousand miles away. There is always a solution--in this case we had to bypass some places in eastern europe and take a 3 day train south to get there on time. But all ended well, as instead of seeing Bulgaria, we shared a train cabin with a Bulgarian family of trapeze artists who made the trip very memorable. Although we have read a ton on the trip, we find our nose's buried in our guide books for hours at a time. We have learned to read between the lines for many of the attractions. Take museums for instance. Everyone goes to see the Michaelangelo's David at the Ufizi in Florence..waiting in line for reservations and tickets and finally fighting a masses for picture of the famous statue. But, front and center of the Ufizi museum is an exact replica of the David--and you can enjoy it for free while sipping a cappacino and watching Italian kids feed pegions in one of the greatest squares of the world. Kori and I are attempting to be honest with ourselves on this matter--why go see something that may not interest us but is the so called best, first or only in the world?

My parents and I went to the town of Lourdes in the French Pyrennes. The town is known as the site where a young woman said she witnessed Mary and people come to see the grotto where it happened. The line to see this sacred place was much longer than our interest in seeing it, so we passed it up and just enjoyed being in a small french town in the mountains. This turned out to be a great experience--by skipping the touristy site we were able to see the Tour de France from a great vantage point and enjoyed the best Cassoulette I have ever had. That morning, I got up early for a jog and had the roads to myself. I ran from town in the countryside and directly into the heart of the religious area. I had U2 blasting in the ipod (thanks to the Denver crew) and little did I know that morning masses had gotten way and they were all held outside. Ironically, I looked up from the pavement listening to "The Streets have no Names" and found myself in the middle of a hundreds of Irish worshippers, all were either starring at the priests giving mass or the tall lanky guy singing "I want to run, I want to hide" under his breath as he slowly realized that he had just ran into the middle of Sunday mass, wearing shorts and listening to rock and roll. At least U2 is Irish.

Dinner doesn't come until well past 8pm. In developing countries, we typically go back to the lunch spot (if we are not cooking for ourselves). This is mainly in the interest of self preservation: if we haven't gotten sick from lunch then its worth trusting for dinner. In these countries, we commonly walk back into the kitchen to make sure that the roaches are smaller than the cooks. Just last night in Tanzania, I saw a roach in the bathroom (in the urinal--not an Ivy League roach) that was as long as my foot is wide. Smashing him would be an issue more of avoiding collateral splat than aim. In modern countries, dinner can be bread, cheese and wine (we look forward to these nights), food from street vendors (the brats in Zermatt are unbeatable) and occasionally splurge at a restaurant. Dining in Europe can easily be $30 a person for a basic entree and a glass of wine. When we saw these prices in Italy after coming straight from India--this was very shocking. Its difficult to spend that much $ in one day in most of India. Our favorite meals? Our wedding dinner cooked up by Chef Ronald in Provence, our first real Indian Thali and infamous grilled Easter Lamb given to us in return for the mere use of our lighter in Argentina. I just asked Kori what her single favorite coffee of the entire trip has been. I imagine this is a difficult question for Kori...as she has many (hundreds), many (maybe thousands) to choose from. Her answer...after a very long thought....a cappacino from "Il Gelateria" in Florence. This is a hole in the wall cafe we stumbled across one morning as it was the only cafe open on Sunday before 7am. Nothing much to it--a typical Italian breakfast, just a chocolate croissant and a small cappacino...but around us were all sorts of great italian personalities. The courier who left his bike unlocked out front, came in slammed a double shot of espresso and was back out the door in under a minute. The old guy laughing over his smoke about something with the owner as he too drank his espresso in record time. In fact, aside from my brother Matt, I have not seen people consume coffee that fast in my life...or so much of it. I nearly have seizures after one espresso, let along the three, four or more that Italians drink in a given day. This particular morning I drank my cappacino quickly (when in Rome) as well and experienced something not unlike a drug overdose...shaking hands, babbling and complete sensory overload surrounded by statues of the great figures of the Renassaince. Pretty sure Donatello was laughing at me.

After dinner we try and get back and get to bed. We have had a couple late nights..but they are few and far between as they are hell on the wallet and hell on the motivation when you know you have to get up at 4am to haggle with a tuk tuk driver to take you to a smelly train station to wait for a train that will likely be hours late. On the walk home, we may jump online...or more appropriate crawl. We have had nothing more than dial up for the past 2 months. We spend most of our time doing posts or trying to catch up on emails or researching if Rwanda is safe or looking at how much a cooking class will be in Changmai in 4 months. Staying up to date with the news is vital for us...without that we would feel lost. On November 4th, 2008 we found out that Barack won in a little restaurant in Kathmandu that somehow patched in CNN. On the rare occasion that our hotel room has TV, we usually turn it on in a desperate hope that it will have a Jane Austin movie on (Kori) or Predator (me...funny the things you miss..). 9 out of 10 times there are movies on....dubbed over in another language. We have watched Die Hard in Russian, Dances with Wolves in Spanish and Ironman in Chinese, Hindi, German....in fact I have seen that movie three times and still have no idea what the hell is going on. By the time we go to bed, we are usually very tired and tend to sleep well. The best nights are in our tent the worst are in hotels that do not have mosquito nets. On those nights, we inevitably wake up to a buzzing in the ear, flip on the lights and go into sniper mode to kill all of the perps. The worst is when you smash one full of blood. In malaria country, all we can do is hope that its ours.

Anyway--if you made it this far, you have some idea of what our days are like. What really matters is that most of our days are amazing. We are one year down and have six months to go. We are well aware of the dire economy and know that many of you are seeing the affects first hand. It may be difficult to hear, but it gets far worse. Guys--outside of N. America and Europe the world is as poor as it looks and things happen that were inconceiveable to me before. In India, malnourished kids play on dirty train tracks. In Malawi, the average age is 33 years. Most African countries have 15% of their entire population as HIV+. The most resonant thing that I have seen, by far, is Rwanda. 1 million people were killed there in 1994. 1 out of 8 citizens. And worst off, it was by the surviving population. Walking through the country, the feeling of shock and guilt is everywhere. Its important to remember what we have--I know that I think of it more than ever. And although we may have to hold off on that bigger big screen until next year, I know that it could be much further worse than I can even conceive. As I have said to my friend Chris R, hug your kids tonight.