Hijacked in Hanoi

It was my first day in Vietnam and I had no idea why I was there. I was sitting alone in Hanoi on the south side of Hoa Kiem Lake minding my own business, in a sort of bored and anxious malaise. I must be getting old because leading up to this trip I'd felt more anxious than excited. The last few years I've rarely traveled alone... I'd almost always been meeting up with one of those jackasses I met in Khao Lak, usually Mark and Rich. Not this time, though, as Rich is still waiting for that plate to be put in his head and Mark is doing something either illegal or immoral or both with his soon-to-be Asian bride.

I'm contemplating all this and whether or not it'd be interesting to see the embalmed body of Ho Chih Minh when I look up and am suddenly surrounded by four giggly girls looking at me and gabbing away in what I presume to be Vietnamese.

"What's your name?"

Ok, here it comes. What am I gonna get sold today? They decide to sit down, two on either side of me, and begin the barrage...

"Where are you from?" "Are you by yourself?" "Where do you live?" "Do you like Vietnam?" "What is your job?" "Do you know Liverpool football?" "How old are you?" "Are you married?" When I answer no it gets all quiet, like I told them I have aerially communicable herpes or something. Then they start barraging me with questions about why I'm not married when I'm so old, and one of them says she's 21 and she's engaged, and then they ask me if I like girls, then one of them suggests I should go to the tribal "Love Market" in Sapa to find a bride, which they all think is the funniest thing ever. And on and on for half an hour. They explain to me that they are local university students and their teacher instructed them go for walks around the lake on Sunday mornings to practice their English with foreigners. Then one of them says "We want to take you out for ice cream."

Yeah right. I'll be walking along the street with these four evil elves and a van will pull up and someone will clobber me over the head and dump me in the lake. But I do like ice cream, so I say ok. We walk a couple of blocks away from the lake and away from the street, into this courtyard packed with people where I am the only non-Vietnamese person. I know this because I'm a head taller than everybody else. I'm like a human lighthouse. The girls insist on buying me ice cream, then drag me across the street for a free Fanta for "Teens only."

It's been about an hour so the girls have to leave but first they want their picture taken with me by the lake. We walk back over there and happen to see a photo shoot going on with three tall Vietnamese models sporting some sort of traditional dresses and walking along the side of the lake. The girls get all excited at this and run over to talk to the photographer. Then one of the girls comes over to me, grabs my arm, and says "Stand over there" meaning where the three models are standing. So the next thing I know I'm getting my picture taken with these three models... people are stopping and staring at us, taking pictures on their phones, the girls are going mental, and I have no idea what the hell is going on. So make sure you look out for me in the next issue of Vogue Vietnam. I'd been in Hanoi for three hours.

What else can I say about Hanoi? I've never seen this many scooters in my life. Crossing the street is like playing human Frogger. Everybody's honking their horn all the time. I've been told that's because people don't use their mirrors and they honk to let everyone know they're coming. Apparently it's illegal to drive in Vietnam if your horn is not working. The street food is outstanding... you can sit down on tiny plastic stools on just about any street corner and find something good to eat. Mostly I've just been pointing at stuff which I hope is chicken, and usually ends up containing a high amount of gristle and/or cartilage. I'm enjoying the Bia Hoi which is fresh beer for about 20 cents a glass. I took a cooking class where I learned how to make a typical northern dish called Bun Cha which is spring rolls and barbecued meat in a kind of soup with rice noodles. Apparently you're supposed to eat pho for breakfast, and Vietnamese people end up eating about 5 or 6 times a day when it's all said and done. I also have to say that Vietnamese coffee kicks ass... it has a strange kind of spice flavor to it. I went for a tour of the Hanoi Hilton, which really is more of a Ramada Inn at best. My favorite part was the pictures of the captured U.S. pilots playing volleyball or decorating a christmas tree... like they're on holiday or something.

Here's a video of one of my moped taxi rides. Pretty tame but you may get an idea.


I've been trying to say a few words here or there, mostly hello and thank you, but the locals seem pretty indifferent to it. The kids are the friendliest, they'll run up to you and say hello and giggle and run away. I've been called "handsome boy" a couple of times which is understandable. Some things are so powerfully obvious that they cross cultural lines.

I happened to be in town for the September 2nd independence day festival where it seemed like the entire city of Hanoi came out to celebrate. All the streets around the lake were closed down... kind of anyway... with only scooter traffic zooming around the pedestrians and with several stages with music and whatnot. Lots of posters of Uncle Ho around the place.

Also, apparently I have one of those recognizable faces, or all bald people look alike. People I've been compared to so far on this trip:
Karim Benzema
Randy Couture
Zidane (again. What is it about me and French footballers?)
The guy from Prison Break. I've never seen Prison Break so I don't know who that is. I'm not sure I want to be associated with prison anything.

I did manage to take a few days trip out to Halong Bay as well, which is a bay made up of around 3000 limestone islands. Again, it's probably best described in pictures, but I've never seen anything like the expanse of limestone outcroppings popping out of the ocean which seem to go on forever. I won't say it was much of a cultural experience, you had your requisite band of drunken partying English dudes, but who cares when you're on the beach with a 333 beer in your hand?

Half the people I've met seem to be English teachers who taught in South Korea. I met a woman from Massa-Carrara which is about 10 minutes from Viareggio, a French-Canadian guy who hit a pig with a motorcycle and has an irrational hatred of people from Ontario, and on the train ride to Da Nang I rode in a compartment with three people from San Francisco.

By the way, Dong jokes never get old... they're like poop jokes. I could hang out in this country just for that.

Without further ado... here are the pics:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/1B5qq2DhD7iUkBF2A

Take 'er easy,
Dave

All that for four minutes?

I think those were Carlee's exact words when I told her the fight was gonna be two 2-minute rounds. Then I had to hear about how she trained for months but it was for a marathon and at least that took a few hours. I thought she'd be psyched about my doing something that lasts four minutes. I can't win.

I'd like to thank everybody for their support for the last couple of months and especially for their patience and understanding of Hungry Dave a.k.a. Asshole Dave. I weighed in the day of the fight at 175 which is about 15-20 pounds lighter than normal. I haven't taken a decent dump in months. After the fight I went out for a burrito and beers, then buffalo wings and beers, then I went home and drank all the beers in my refrigerator, ate a large salad bowl full of cereal and some leftover steak. There's a long story in here somewhere... blood... sweat... tears... mostly the other guy's... but I can't be asked to write it right now.

These videos were taken by a friend of my opponent's
Round 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOXqW2gTYmM
Round 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrhqZNk_nmQ

Here are the ones Tony and Ang took for me
https://photos.app.goo.gl/F5QbuLwUxcMBKfb77

I also posted one of the videos to the Facebook. Feel free to share... I know there are a lot of people out there who would like to vicariously punch me in the face.

Bunkerd and me

From All that for four minutes?

I have to say that hitting someone with intent is a unique experience. I recommend it. Although I kind of feel badly about it because it turns out that Anthony is a really nice guy. Now all I have left is the gig with the band and I can take the rest of the year off.

Take 'er easy,
Dave

Horizontal rain and a bunch of old cathedrals

Greetings everybody,

When one of your friends asks you if you want to visit them in Iceland, how can you say no? I went as a guest of Mica and Ingi, both of whom I know from Khao Lak. Unfortunate things seem to happen to Mica whenever I’m around, like the time Dean almost lit her on fire with gasoline, or the time we kept getting washed up into the reef when we were snorkeling, or the time the longtail boat we were on almost capsized. This time it went much more smoothly… she just passed out in the bathroom after we spent too long in the hot tub at Ingi’s parents’ house.

Here are a few of my immediate observations shortly after landing in Iceland: Iceland is cold. Iceland is windy. There are a lot of blond people. Iceland is also windy. Yes, I know... piercing. Geographically, Iceland is unlike anyplace I have ever visited... it's volcanic rock and mountains and ice and grass. It looks like the kind of place where they could stage a fake landing on Mars and you would believe it. It's hard to picture somebody 1000 years ago saying "You know what? Norway is just too temperate for me. This place is perfect!" And yet they did.



Here are some other random facts you may or may not know about Iceland:
-Icelandic women only dress in four colors: black, light black, dark black, and dark purple. Sometimes gray. If you see a woman wearing a floral pattern... tourist. Or it’s Mica.
-Iceland is almost completely green, with its ample power coming from geothermal and hydroelectric plants. This is why everyone has their heat turned up to 90 degrees 24/7 and one of the top Icelandic pastimes is hanging out in your hot tub.
-Iceland lies on both the European and the North American land masses and is quickly expanding by an inch per year.
-Liquor stores are owned by the government and close by 6 pm.
-You can visit the President of Iceland's house, and by visit I mean drive right up to it and walk around. Not big on formality over there.
-Christmas is a huge deal in Iceland. Everybody covers their house up with lights and decorations. There are 13 Santa Clauses, each known by a different character trait. Personal favorites include "The Sausage Snatcher" and "The Window Peeper." Apparently, what passes for “Santa Claus” in Iceland is known as “homeless guy” in the U.S.
-It rains horizontally. Only tourists try to use umbrellas.
-Viking Beer

If you're ever in Iceland, I highly recommend making a stop at the Blue Lagoon spa. Nothing quite like hanging out in an outdoor mineral pool for three hours in the sun/rain/sun/rain/hail/rain/sun/rain/sun. It’s a strange feeling being in a hot pool while you’re being pelted with freakin’ ice missiles. On the plus side, you can enjoy a silica face mask which makes your skin feel soft and supple afterward.

From Iceland it was on to Italy, where I had volunteered to act as tour guide for Lee, Anna, Rich and Mark who were coming down from England for a few days. Il Bresci (my dad) managed to fight through the disappointment he felt when he found out that three of my friends are vegetarians in order to unleash one of his typical gastro-intestinal assaults. After the pre-dinner cocktail and the three different bottles of regional wines with dinner and the Vin Santo with dessert, he unleashed his pride and joy, his homemade liqueurs, like Limoncello, Nocino, Lemon Milk (don't ask), and a bunch of other herbal and/or fruity stuff. Lee made the mistake of saying that he'd never tried grappa. Il Bresci left the room for about thirty seconds and showed up with ten different bottles in hand, each a different type of grappa. For those of you that don't know what grappa is, it's made from the distilled remains of grape skins that are left over after you've made wine. It tastes about as good as it sounds. To the surprise of absolutely no one who’s ever hung out with English people, we then went out for a couple of pints.

One of the great things about having an engineer as your dad is that you can tell him you'd like to drive around Italy for a few days and he'll lay out an itinerary for you with detailed routes cross-referenced with specific pages in your guidebook for each destination. We decided to skip the usual major cities and head for less-traveled locations like Arezzo, Perugia, Orvieto and Massa Marittima, just to name a few.

The next five days consisted of the five of us traveling in a Passat station wagon through various towns in Tuscany and Umbria watching Lee eat anything that resembled any sort of pizza-like substance and hearing Rich complain about something or other. I don't know why we even needed the guide books… every Italian city's major attraction is a church. Mark would be reading the lonely planet and we'd ask him where we should go in, say, Todi, and he'd reply "The cathedral is meant to be quite nice." Oh, you don't say? What a surprise! That being said, I have to admit that all the cathedrals were quite striking. The ones that stand out the most to me are the one in Todi for the mural of the day of judgment and the one in Orvieto for the intricate etchings on the outer walls. Oh, and the one in Massa Marittima because we got kicked out for walking in during a baptism.

Oh no, I think I left the oven on

We weren't shy about trying different types of regional foods whenever we could lay our hands on them, from porchetta in Assisi, to pastries in Perugia, to primi piatti in Foligno. Porchetta is basically a whole pig that’s been de-boned, filled with garlic, rosemary and salt, and roasted over a spit for a day. Even the vegetarians were drooling at that one. Lee required a pizza fix by 10 AM every day, and I bought at least two loaves of bread daily. Unfortunately, we were traveling during the vendemmia (grape harvest) so we couldn't find a vineyard that was open for wine tasting. It worked out though, because we decided to undertake our own extensive independent wine tasting through the various box and/or screw top wines of Italy. Taste the magic!



I also recommend driving around Italy if you ever get a chance. Once you get into the country there are some wicked windy roads running through the hills and through vineyards and olive groves, which is nice as long as no one gets carsick and as long as you don't have some ungrateful bastards in the back seat pointing out when you happen to take a wrong turn or go through a roundabout a couple of times.

After that it was off to London for a few days to stay with Stefano. Those of you that are friends of Stefano will be happy to know that he recently bought a house, which means he'll no longer be bathing with a garden hose. Also, I managed to be in town for London's yearly sunny day, which I of course spent working inside a data center. P.S. If you ever have to drive in London, DO NOT USE GARMIN. You're better off asking people for directions rather than taking the "fastest route" through central freakin London. Hey... 12 miles in two hours... but I got to drive by Trafalgar square! Woo hoo!

It’s always tough coming home after getting into travel mode, so after an 11 hour flight into SFO I'm waiting in line at passport control wondering how many times I'm going to get searched, because apparently I look like a recent Al Qaeda recruit. I get up to the front and hand the guy my passport and watch as he looks at my passport picture, then looks at me, then at my picture again, then at me, and I'm thinking this is the time they take me to the back for a cavity search. Finally he says "You look like a before and after from one of those hair replacement ads, except backwards. What happened? Do you work on wall street or something?" Ha ha ha!!! Welcome to the United States mothafucka!

On the plus side, I came back to work to find this in my cubicle:
http://gallery.me.com/the.white.house#100216

And, without further ado, you can find the pictures from the trip:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/WPTgwiq8e93WHfnSA

Take 'er easy,
Dave

Four days in Havana

Greetings everybody,

If you had told me a couple of months ago that I'd end up in Havana in early June, I would've said that I didn't think urinating in public was a deportable offense. It's not… my lawyer assured me… so let's say that it started with an email, which is how pretty much everything starts nowadays, whose subject line simply read "Cuba." Next thing I know, I'm on a flight from LA to Cancun to meet up with Jimmy W and Jeremy DP. We don't really call him that but I'll use any excuse to work DP into a story. Anyhow, when three guys are single, have disposable income, a "why not" attitude, and honestly nothing else going on, that's how things happen. We were set to spend four days in Havana, who the veteran Jeremy assured me would be plenty of time. Let's say that, theoretically, you hadn't held a real job for about four years. A four day trip to a foreign country would seem really short, right? Not that I know anybody like that, but work with me.

We had to spend one night in Cancun because our flight to Havana didn't leave until the next day. I won't go into much detail about Cancun, other than to say it made me think of Las Vegas on the beach, and I don't mean that in a good kind of way, I mean that in a culturally vacuous kind of way. Nothing but giant resort hotels and chain restaurants as far as the eye could see. Being stuck on a one-hour shuttle bus ride with six rednecks talking about how they can't wait to party at Senor Frog's will sour you on a place fairly quickly. Let's move along.

Our flight to Havana the next day was delayed by six hours, which they didn't tell us until we'd already checked in. Cubana airlines… bringing all the efficiency of Communism to the skies! We ended up spending some quality time in the lovely Cancun airport where we met an Australian couple, Glen and Margo, who were also on their way to Havana and a Cuban woman named Sobe who lives in Scranton and carries around pictures of herself and her husband from the society pages of the local newspaper. The highlight of the day was the flight itself, a one-hour test of faith on a Russian YAK-42 (no joke). Some of the features of this engineering marvel included free-floating seat backs and seat bottoms (because you don't want those pesky seats locking in place… who knows what could happen?), airline peanuts that expired in 2004 (which I didn't notice until after I ate them), an ice-cold substance akin to liquid nitrogen blasting underneath all the seats, and a lovely gasoline smell permeating the entire cabin shortly after takeoff. I must've looked concerned because the guy sitting next to me felt the need to reassure me with the comforting words "Es normal." Ah yes, thanks for that. This began a conversation that was to be like many of the conversations I had in Cuba, where people thought I could understand everything they were saying just because I was attempting to speak Spanish. I managed to piece together that he was the trumpet player in a salsa band called Charanga Habanera that tours all over the world. Here's a clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eip9hWMFGQ

The flight itself was mercifully only an hour long, after which I proceeded to get stopped four times by Cuban passport control/immigration/customs. Wait a minute… you're supposed to get harassed on your way out of Cuba, not on the way in. I couldn't figure it out... I even had a sweet Fidel-like beard going. How the hell did Jeremy, who was dressed like a cross between a 1950's CIA operative and a German tourist, not even get asked one question? He even came and stood right next to me while I was being questioned by the cops and they completely ignored him. Then I was taken to a corner where the guy opened up my bag, rifled through my stuff, and said to me "Solo ropa?" What's he expect me to say at that point? No officer, there's a kilo of heroin in there somewhere, keep looking. Yeah "solo ropa."

We were greeted at the airport by Jeremy's Cuban contact Felix, an auto mechanic with a ferocious porn mustache, who had arranged for us to stay at a casa particular, which is the term for a house that's licensed by the government to take in boarders. We had to catch a cab into town because apparently Felix had gotten in trouble last time Jeremy came to Cuba for giving him a ride to the airport and ended up spending a night in jail. So we got a ride from Ricardo, a cabbie whose mother was an English teacher, who, with a laugh, promised to take us to drink "the warmest beer in Havana." It was at a roadside stand where Jeremy proceeded to introduce Jimmy and I to Cristal, one of two beers tourists can buy in Cuba for 1.15 CUC each. This is probably a good time to explain how currency works in Cuba. There are two different types of money: Cuban Convertibles (CUC) that are supposed to be for tourists and roughly the equivalent of a U.S. Dollar, and Cuban pesos which are the currency for the locals and equivalent to about 4 cents each. That's the theory anyway, but CUC have become so pervasive that there's basically a mixed dual economy going on. Felix is an auto mechanic for the government telecommunications company and he explained that he's paid in both currencies, although it's only 28 CUC and 600 pesos per month. Basically, we just spent approximately one day of Felix's salary for a beer. Of course, if Felix wants to buy beer, he can choose from another selection of beers that he can pay for in pesos rather than CUC, but they're for Cubans only.

Driving through Havana by night is a little bit eerie. We weren't staying in a tourist area, Cerro is a residential neighborhood, and no one was either walking or driving along the streets. The only things you can focus on are the buildings as you drive by, and that's when you really start to notice the beautiful architecture of the city itself. I'd read that Cuba has been heavily influenced not only by Spain but by France as well, and it's easy to see parallels to Madrid and Paris in construction all around the city. By the time we reached our host Elizabeth's house, I think Jimmy had already taken a hundred pictures. Elizabeth runs a casa particular which by the looks of it means she kicks her two daughters out of their rooms whenever she can find boarders to stay at her house. We each paid 30 CUC per night, which when you add it all up equals Felix's yearly salary for just four days of hosting three goofy Americans. That's a pretty sweet deal even when you factor in the cost of fumigating Jeremy's room. It also explains how she can afford a satellite dish that is tuned in to Telemundo 24x7.

Our first day we decided to head out and explore on foot, which took us through Cerro north toward the water to Vedado and eventually to the more touristy Havana Vieja. Seeing Cerro in daylight definitely gave a different impression than the previous night's drive-through. I don't think dilapidation is the right word, but I'm not sure how else to describe the state of most of the buildings as you walk through this part of Havana. I can't speak for the interiors, maybe they're all like Elizabeth's house where it's beaten up on the outside but hooked up with new tile floors and paint inside, but all you can see from the exterior is this incredible architecture that looks as if it hasn't been maintained for the last 50 years. That's the feel the entire city gives you as you stroll through it, with the old Chevrolets and boxy Russian Lada cars zooming around and these beautiful buildings covered in cracks and peeling paint. It's as if at one point they decided "okay, that's it" and stopped taking care of things. The people themselves just seem to go on about their business, or lack of business. The sidewalks are filled with people hanging around, talking with friends, or leisurely walking from one place to another. Don't get me wrong, there are people working in Havana, but it's also obvious that there are a lot of people not doing much of anything.

We visited the Jose Marti memorial, a tribute to one of the first Cuban revolutionaries and its chief national hero. He was also a writer, poet, translator, diplomat, journalist and painter. He died tragically, shot in the ass by his own troops. Look it up. Okay, not really, but he is dead, otherwise he'd be about 170 years old, which would be a pretty good advertisement for the revolutionary lifestyle. Anyhow, the monument is situated next to the Plaza de la Revolucion where all the big May Day festivities are held every year and across the street from the Ministry of the Interior building that has a giant portrait of Che Guevara on its facade. That's one of the first things you notice in Havana… the billboards that you would normally expect to be selling you an iPod or some other crap you don't need are instead covered with propaganda, from quotes by Che and Fidel to pleas to free the Cuban Five. There are no chain stores of any kind, only small corner shops or larger nameless storefronts. Combined with the worn-down buildings it served to give the city a heavy, gray feel, which is one of the main reasons that Havana is so photographically fascinating.

Our first conversation of any significance with a local came after a tropical rainstorm later that afternoon when we managed to find a courtyard near the Malecon (the waterfront) that served ice-cold Cristals and Bucaneros. We sat next to a table of three young Cuban guys, one of whom started talking to us in broken English and introduced himself as Fish, or as he pronounced it, Feesh. Fish and his two buddies were enjoying small boxes of something called Planchao, which looks like a juice drink you'd put in your kid's lunch, but is actually rum that tastes like something you'd use to light a barbecue. Fish and his friends asked if they could join us at our table because they didn't want the police to see them talking to tourists from another table for some reason and Jeremy bought a round of Planchao for everyone... they only cost 1 CUC each and as such are cheaper than beer. At this point Fish started asking us questions about where we're from, why we're in Havana, and, of course, how we like the Cuban women. This was his launching point for a Shakespearian soliloquy whereby he explained how if you want the "fucky fucky" from the Cuban ladies, you've got to have some spending cash. I think the best way to explain the course of the conversation is to watch a bit of magic that Jimmy managed to capture in this exchange between Fish and Jeremy.


feesch!

Next thing we know, three of Fish's lady friends appeared out of nowhere and sat down one-by-one next to Jeremy, Jimmy, and me. This was the "check please" moment of the conversation. On the way out a couple of the enterprising young ladies followed us, but neither one was willing to meet Jeremy's asking price of 100 CUC so we went on our way.

Later that night Felix took us to the baseball stadium to watch Cuba's Red team play against Puerto Rico in a tournament of Caribbean countries. Felix paid for our tickets which cost him 3 pesos, or about 12 cents U.S each. The stadium was practically empty; there were more security officers than fans; so we sat in the front row box seats/metal lawn chairs down the right field line near the visiting team's dugout. We enjoyed typical Cuban ballgame fare such as pork sandwiches with vinegar, salted popcorn, and, for some reason, a bag of nearly indestructible rock candy. After a couple of innings, one of us recognized that a coach on Puerto Rico's team was Juan Gonzalez, who used to play professionally in the U.S., won the MVP award twice, and turned down a 140 million dollar deal with the Detroit Tigers back in 2001. He was never known as the smartest ballplayer in the world… his nickname is Igor. Anyhow, we might not have noticed Juan except for the fact that, from the field, he was flirting with one of the security officers, a girl who was about 50 feet up in the stands dressed in the classic Castro olive drab military uniform. He kept looking over at her and trying to get her attention with some kind of weird clicking sound, like he was calling over a cat. Maybe that's how the magic happens in Puerto Rico. Or maybe when you're a ballplayer worth millions of dollars you just stop giving a shit, I dunno. They're yelling things at each other in Spanish and she comes down to talk to him for a couple of minutes, so we tell Felix that this dude is Juan Gonzalez and he made millions of dollars in the big leagues. Felix laughs and calls over one of the security guys and proceeds to tell him what we just said, and next thing you know, chaos ensues. About five or six different people, security guards and whatnot, descend right in front of where we're sitting, call over Juan Gonzalez, and start giving him all sorts of shit. This is all going on in Spanish so I'm only picking up about a quarter of what they're saying, but I did manage to hear the security guy asking Juan if he made all that money why doesn't he just buy Puerto Rico. After a couple of minutes it's obvious that Juan is getting more and more annoyed, and he's standing about five feet away from us, and we know that he knows that we are the guys who called him out. I'd like to point out for the record that Juan is about 6'5" and weighs about 250 pounds, not to mention that it looked like the entire Puerto Rican team had been dipped in a vat of steroids. I don't know exactly what happened next because this really fat chick decided to lean over the railing directly in front of me to talk to the right fielder for the Puerto Rican team, and when I tried to video this whole scene I got caught by the security girl who thought that I was trying to video the fat chick's ass. So Juan is arguing with a couple of security guards while the fat chick is chatting up the right fielder and I'm trying to convince the security girl that I wasn't taking pictures of anybody's ass. It was total chaos. They eased up on Juan after a few minutes and he even gave an autographed baseball to the security girl, whom I got to sit with the three of us and take a picture. A few minutes later she came back over to us and asked if we could delete her picture because she didn't want to get in trouble if some officials looked at the pictures as we were leaving the country, so I did. A couple of innings later, Juan was back at it with this new move where he played with his lower lip and making some sort of baby sound... it was a weird scene. Apparently, it takes more than that to knock Juan off his game... he's a pro. Oh yeah, Cuba won the game in extra innings on a walk-off home run.

The next day we took a cab ride directly to downtown Havana and walked to the Floridita, the bar where the Daiquiri was invented and one of Hemingway's favorite hangouts. There's some sort of cult of Hemingway in Cuba, not so much because the Cubans themselves think he's special, but more because they realize that tourists do. If Hemingway ducked into a place once to take a dump it'll be advertised as one of his "haunts." I tried to order the Papa Doble, which is a daiquiri with a double shot of rum named for Hemingway because he supposedly drank 13 of them in one sitting, but the bartender wouldn't have it. He simply said "Daiquiri" and looked at me with glazed-over eyes that said "If I hear the name Hemingway once more I swear I'm going to come in here with an AK-47 and murder everyone at this bar." So I ordered a round of daiquiris. Three rounds later, we were well on our way to our longest day in Havana.

We spent most of the day walking around Havana Vieja, which, due to its popularity with tourists, has been the beneficiary of a directed effort by the Cuban government to restore many of its historic buildings. Calling it the tourist area doesn't ring right when you've seen the likes of Khao San Road in Bangkok or Thamel in Kathmandu or even Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. I mean, it's the area where most tourists end up at some point or another because of the beautiful buildings and its relative concentration of hotels and restaurants, but it is nowhere near the chaotic scene of your typical tourist area. As I mentioned earlier, there are no chain stores or shopping malls, only a series of small stores and outdoor boutiques along some of the more popular walking streets. There are quite a few museums and plenty of restaurants, such as the one we ducked into during another rainstorm where an acoustic guitar quartet played Cuban music while we sipped mojitos and ate Moros y Cristianos (black beans and rice).

Later that night we made our way over to the Malecon, which seems to be the place where the locals hang out at night. The waterfront was filled with people sitting on the sea wall, drinking beers and rum, dancing salsa, and propositioning the tourists (i.e. us). Contrary to popular belief, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about hookers so I'm not quite sure how to explain the relationship between some of the local women and male tourists... maybe Fish was right in how he explained it. I don't know if I'd classify these women as straight-up hookers, although you do get directly propositioned, but it seems like most of them are hookers of convenience. What I mean is that they see a tourist and think it's an easy way to make a few CUC, or they'd sleep with you and then ask you for money afterward. Maybe that's a subtlety that doesn't make any sense to anybody except me, but I'm not sure how else to explain it. To be fair, after talking to some of the locals they explained that some women are just looking for guys to take them out to clubs where they don't allow Cubans unless they're accompanied by tourists. All in all, the best strategy is to simply be careful or stay away altogether.

We stopped and sat along the Malecon for a while drinking Cristal and Bucanero and observing instead of being observed. As a tourist in Havana you sometimes feel as if you're either being ignored or being hustled so it was nice to sit back and watch for a while. We (meaning me, the official translator) ended up talking with a couple of university kids who are the only people we met in our time there that said anything negative about the Castro government. After a couple of hours on the Malecon we left these future poster boys for Amnesty International, jumped in a cab, and someone (me) said to the cabbie "24 hora cerveza!"

Where we ended up next I can't exactly say… I didn't exactly give specific directions. It was somewhere along the water but maybe three or four miles up the road in the middle of nowhere. There was what looked like an outdoor bar and when I looked at the cab driver he said "aqui" so we paid and got out. The bar turned out to be closed, so our only other option was a small, well lit shack that had a sign declaring "Pollo Ditu." We'd seen a few of these around town and it's the closest thing Havana has to a fast-food chain. Lucky for us, they served beer and some sort of deep fried chicken nuggets/parts that are purple on the inside. If you were ever curious about the type of people that hang out at a 24-hour chicken pit in Havana, wonder no more. We met Gaston, the English-speaking Pollo Ditu employee whose wife is an opera singer, Ariel the security guard who for some reason works a 12-hour shift guarding a pollo pit, and a couple of young ladies who told us their names were Doris and "Mylove." Under normal circumstances we probably would've been a bit wary of hanging out with a girl named Doris who assured us more than once that her boobs are real and another girl who called herself Mylove with a tattoo of the Playboy bunny right above her butt, but Pollo Ditu at 4 am with Bucanero and Planchao is not what I would consider normal circumstances. Besides, there was nothing in the Lonely Planet specifically warning us against Playboy tattoos. So we stayed out all night drinking beers at a chicken pit in the middle of nowhere with the two girls, the chicken guys and a security guard, with me acting as the translator for all conversations. Again, I'd like to point out that my Spanish is fantastic… I mastered the art of verbally putting question marks and exclamation points in front of my sentences. It was daybreak when we decided we should probably head back to our casa, and before leaving Ariel gave us his phone number and said we should come to stay with him and his family next time we're in Havana. My Spanish is better than I thought, although if it was really good I wouldn't have ended up with a male security guard's digits.

As you can imagine, we didn't do much on our last day that didn't involve sleeping, although we did get a farewell dinner feast cooked by Elizabeth. My main disappointment was that we never got to go salsa dancing, but I can't say that we didn't have an eventful four days. I'm not going to make any extensive pronouncements on the good or evil of communism... I was only there for four days, so what can you really deduce about a place in that amount of time? Some people were afraid to talk to us and others had no problems with it. A security officer didn't want her picture to be recorded with tourists. Felix got thrown in jail for giving tourists a ride to the airport. So in that sense, the government is very restrictive about tourist/local interaction. Economically, no one in the city seems particularly well-off, in fact I'd say that most people are poor, although it seems as though everyone is at the same level of poor. I saw much fewer homeless people in Havana than I would on a typical afternoon in San Francisco. On the other hand, I was propositioned for sex a lot more than I would be on a typical afternoon in San Francisco (unfortunately), which shows a certain level of desperation. Not that they'd have to be desperate to proposition me. Wouldn't hurt though. Anyhow, the city itself is gorgeous in such a unique way that I think it needs to be seen to be appreciated. On the other hand, as I mentioned earlier, the beauty of the city has not been maintained at all and most of what you see can best be described as worn or faded which, honestly, weighs on you emotionally after a while, especially if you think of how beautiful it could be. Not everyone sees it the same way as I do... we met an old chain-smoking Italian man named Franco at the airport that said he'd traveled all his life working in the textile business and has never seen a place as beautiful as Havana.

Havana's not going to stay closed for long, though. They're opening up a Benetton store in Havana Vieja. We went to the Bodeguita del Medio in Playa del Carmen which is absolutely nothing like the original in Havana. It has its own merchandise store where they sell items like "I heart Che" coffee mugs. Can you imagine Che Guevara walking into a place where they sell "I heart Che" coffee mugs? His head would probably explode. But it's only a matter of time before they open one up next to the original.

If you've made it this far, you have my congratulations and my condolences. I didn't think I could write this much about only four days, but Havana gives you a lot of subject matter to work with. If you want to check out the accompanying pictures, here's the link:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/jfDhZRBh7BThuNcN9

Any pictures that are visually interesting in any way whatsoever were stolen from Jimmy.

Take 'er easy,

Dave

Bay to Blazers

Hi everybody,

Last weekend was the annual Bay to Breakers, which this year was unofficially renamed in honor of my brother. For those of you who don't know, this is a 7 mile "race" across San Francisco from the bay to the ocean. Maybe the first 3% or so is an actual race... the rest is, to quote Nedermeyer from Animal House, "individual acts of perversion so profound and disgusting that decorum prohibits listing them here."

I tried not to get any pictures of old naked guys, but I can't promise anything if they're somewhere in the corner of the frame or something. Actually, the number of old naked guys was down this year for some reason. Don't worry, they made up for their lack of numbers by wearing green fluorescent hats so if you saw them out of the corner of your eye you couldn't help but look in their direction. Nudists are very enterprising.

Pictures are here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/oVvFFZ5yQ92ZJYkV7

Take 'er easy

Valentine's Day Pillow Fight

Because nothing says "I love you" like beating the shit out of strangers in a public square.

The pictures will speak for themselves...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/K91a3xZoR21U19fE7

All I've Got Are These Damn Nepalese Coins

I actually did bring back some coins from Nepal. I'm going to try that line next time I'm at the laundromat.

Anyhow, The most important thing to do when you get to a new country is get acquainted with its booze. Nepal is home to Everest beer, which has a picture of the famous sherpa Tenzing Norgay on the label and tastes like it contains one of his urine samples. Or you can try Tongba, a hot, alcoholic, millet-based beverage. Yes, I know what you're thinking, after drinking Tongba I am also surprised that the millet craze has not swept across the western world. But you need some booze in you to try and absorb the chaos that is Kathmandu. There's pretty much no order to the traffic, cars look like they're about to plow into each other, people are walking in the middle of the streets, it's a free-for-all. Most of the buildings look as though a bomb went off in them, and there are beggars and touts everywhere, especially in the tourist district. There's garbage in the streets, and, if you're lucky, cow shit. Lots of it.

Traveling to Nepal made me very much appreciate what I have. It's a very, very poor country. There are a lot of people living in squalor, without clean water or electricity. Many of the dwellings that you see are made of cinder blocks cemented together, with corrugated tin roofs that have rocks on top of them to keep them from flying off during high winds. People bathe in the cold water outside if they bathe at all. The main river that runs through Kathmandu is overrun with garbage. You walk through parts of the town and you feel like you're walking through the set of some post-apocalyptic movie. I felt like a kind of voyeur. It's weird to walk through there and think that pretty much anytime you could take off and go back to your world but that all the Nepalis have to deal with it every day of their lives. What can you do though? Give to Oxfam I guess, volunteer when you can, vote your conscience, and try to be a responsible consumer. Or, ignore it and just be happy that beer is cheap and your room only costs $2 per night. We went with option B. We stayed in Kathmandu for a couple of days because the airlines lost my luggage, but after that it was off to Pokhara which is the launching point for treks into the Annapurna conservation area.

You have to be in top physical and mental shape to attempt a trek to Annapurna base camp (ABC) at 4280 meters (over 14,000 feet). I... am neither. That probably explains why I spent most of the time trying to figure out how I could throw myself into a canyon without doing too much harm, just enough to warrant a helicopter rescue. I should've done more research on what "trek" exactly means. But I knew one thing for sure, that no matter how bad a shape I was in or how much I was struggling, Rich would be worse. I found comfort in that. Plus I was looking forward to growing a mountain beard. Of course, any positivity was erased on the first day when Rich and I encountered our first set of Nepali steps. And, since the trek was his idea, everything was Mark's fault. He was itching to try it again since he tried to get to ABC 9 years ago but couldn't make it because he hurt his back.

I don't know if I need to get into detail about what the trek was like, you can look at the pictures, but if I was keeping a journal it would go something like this:
Day 1: Fuck you Mark.
Days 2-5: See Day 1.
Day 6: Nice mountains. P.S. Fuck you Mark.
Days 7-9: I can't believe it's taking me three days to walk back.
Someone needs to send some civil engineers over to Nepal. Apparently, if you want to go up 200 meters, you can't just go up 200 meters. You have to go up 400, then come down 300, then go up 200 more, and come down 100. It's bullshit. We had to hike 6-7 hours a day in these conditions, with a pack. I kept thinking that I could've been on a beach somewhere. Cold showers? Check! Plus, let me tell you something about squat toilets. When you're up at altitude... water freezes! Hey! What do you know? That means if you don't properly flush your poop down the squat toilet, it leaves a frozen surprise for the next person who comes in. Just a heads-up to those of you that might not know. Through it all, Rich and I tried to keep our spirits up by coming up with different ways to kill Mark. At first they were fairly mundane, but as we got colder and as the air got thinner they got more complicated. I think the last one we came up with is that we'd kill him and then slice him open so we could sleep inside him when it was cold, like at the beginning of Empire Strikes Back. Yeah, I know it's gruesome. We were bitter.

I'm not telling you that it wasn't beautiful, or that we didn't have any fun. I mean, I got to climb to the top of Poon Hill! It's a misnomer, by the way, all you can see from there are a bunch of mountains. I looked through the conservation area map and found a Titi Lake and a Nymphu Monastery, but unfortunately they weren't on our route. In Tadapani, Rich was threatened with a dull knife by a 12-year-old girl. On the trek we met a Dutch girl named Karin who traveled most of the way with us, although she did bring our beard factor down. I got to dance with a bunch of Nepali porters. I got to see a monkey steal a lady's bag. We met up with some Buddhist monks on the trek that taught us some card tricks. By the way, being a Buddhist monk seems like a sweet gig. They didn't have to pay for anything at the lodge, they were walking around with iPods and digital SLR cameras, and they were getting all the food they could eat for free. You should see these guys at breakfast. Disciplined my ass.

We did have some excitement on the trip. Mark finally made it to Annapurna base camp this time, but only stayed about an hour because he got altitude sickness. For those of you who don't know, altitude sickness occurs when you ascend too quickly without acclimatizing, and severe altitude sickness can kill you. He got a really bad headache and then started puking up his masala tea, at which point the Nepalis said he had to descend immediately to a lower altitude. So he had to go down to another village... in the middle of a blizzard. Santos, his porter, led him down. As any good friends would do, Rich and I stayed at base camp. Hey, we wanted to see the sunrise over the Annapurnas. Besides... blizzards are cold.

Anyhow, without further ado, pictures are here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/vzHZn2FRaNZ1KG3U9

Dave