Friday, August 31, 2007
Will Shortz is my new bff
I am extremely proud of myself. I finished today's Friday NY Times crossword! Plus I finished last week's Friday as well! Before, I could only do Fridays very rarely but it looks like I am improving. (Newspaper puzzles increase in difficulty from Monday to Saturday, with Sunday being bigger but about a Thursday difficulty.) All those crosswords while we were on vacation really paid off. Last week I was so clever I didn't even look anything up. I had to this week - didn't know a hockey player named Tverdovsky, a wrestler named Flair, or any songs from the '60s - but generally I would just stare at a word & think, or run the alphabet in my head, & I made some inspired guesses. Those clues are hard. I won't give away the answers if anyone is working on it, but what do you think the 8-letter answer is for 16-across, "Exchange for something you really want?" The 10-down "Skin pics?" answer I still don't understand. The worst part about late-week crosswords is trying to figure out what exactly they're driving at. Usually it could be several different things, & there aren't enough words in the clue to let you know which one until you've got some letters. I like how much crosswords exercise my brain though - which reminds me, I need to go pick up some physics textbooks. :)
London: 9.5/10
[This post has been sitting on my desk in longhand all week - typing is much faster than writing, but it also requires more time than you'd think.] I never thought I'd welcome drizzle! London was a bit damp & after the frying heat of Sharm, I was quite glad of it. We took the very nice Heathrow Express train into Paddington. I don't understand why we can't have trains out to NYC airports like that. The AirTrain to JFK is good, but the pain of getting to Queens for it completely negates its benefits. Anyhow, we met about 10 of his friends at Carluccio's for dinner. Their style of humor, consisting mainly of teasing each other non-stop, took some getting used to, but I immediately understood why SE does it to me all the time. & it's funny when it happens to other people. His friends were really sweet to me & all said a variant of "I've heard so much about you," which is always music to a girlfriend's ears. I liked them a lot. It being a Thursday, everyone went home after dinner. People don't seem to do the weekday party thing as much as here.
Friday SE had some visa issues to sort out at the embassy so I had to amuse myself all day. After breakfast & getting very specific directions from place to place on the tube, , I set off on my explorations. First stop: British Library. I got distracted by Top Shop in Oxford Circus though. I'd read that it's a high street store & that Kate Moss had a line there, so of course I had to see for myself. (Sadly, her stuff was a bit out of budget.) I ended up with a cute polka-dot dress & black lace leggings. SE later explained to me that "high street" doesn't mean really good, as I'd thought, it means the shop is on every high street (meaning "main street"). Basically it's a more stylish H&M. After an hour I dragged myself away & onto the Tube. We love to complain about the subway in NYC but we still only pay $2/ride here & $7 for an all-day pass. The Tube is £4/ride & £5.10/day - that's $8 & $10.20 respectively! They have an unlimited Oyster card which is generally £1.50/ride, but I can't buy one online unless I have a London address so it's still much more expensive for visitors. The trains do come a lot more often, but there's no air conditioning on the trains & they are generally much further underground. I saw electric signs in every station keeping passengers updated about which lines were working, which hints at frequent problems, & though I didn't experience delays myself all the Londoners I talked to complained about unreliability. It's more of a problem there because cabs are also much pricier, so when there's a Tube issue, jumping in a cab is not as easy. Although the cabs are so much nicer I almost think they're worth it. They look really cool, like better PT Cruisers; they're roomy inside, so 5 people or fewer plus luggage can get in comfortably; you can have privacy or talk to the driver by pressing a button; lots of the cars have phones inside, like on an airplane except free; & there are often phone & iPod chargers built into a side panel. I want LTI, the carmaker, to come over here.
So where was I? Right, on my way to the British Library. It's a beautiful building inside & out. There's a very interesting exhibit called Sacred, about ancient manuscripts of Judaism, Islam & Christianity, especially the Torah, Qu'ran & Bible. I've always thought Arabic a lovely-looking language. & seeing it with gold leaf, calligraphy & painstakingly drawn details made quite an impression. I wish I could get a tattoo in Arabic but that would probably be a bit silly. As much as I love the concept of libraries, they get kind of boring after ~5 minutes if I'm not reading so when I was done wandering around the exhibits I made my way to the British Museum. I meandered around the Chinese, Central America, Japanese, Enlightenment & various other rooms. I checked on the Egyptian mummies, too - we didn't see any in the Egyptian Museum, go figure. They are super creepy & I stayed about 4 seconds, long enough to read the description, before I was too nervous to stay touching-distance from a very lifelike dead body. Eventually I got tired of walking around & being by myself in a strange city & decided to go home. I got off the Tube at Oxford Circus & that's when I realized that I hadn't asked SE how to walk from there to the apartment. I couldn't remember how I got to the station initially because I'd gotten lost & asked about 5 people. Plus my sense of direction is nonexistent. I didn't have a map & thought the apartment was northwest of the station when it was actually northeast & didn't recognize landmarks correctly so I spent about 2 hours walking around in circles with painful shoes. I couldn't call SE & was so clueless that when he called to see if I was coming home, I mistakenly thought I was almost there & didn't ask for help so I was unnecessarily lost for another half hour. At length I found the right street & got safely home. Fortunately we had a bit of time for me to gather my wits before meeting some of his friends at an All Bar One (it's a chain) on Henrietta St.
A few glasses of champagne sorted me out nicely. We went to Bar Shu on Frith St. to meet SE's old colleague & his current girlfriend. Bar Shu is an absolutely fantastic Szechuan restaurant, better than in New York - I was so happy. We all got along very well & continued on to Milk & Honey for a drink, where another friend of SE's met us. Since it was a Friday night SE wanted to see how the London club scene was doing & off we 5 went to Paper. We got a bottle of vodka - if you think NYC clubs are bad, imagine paying the same price in £s (= 2 x $s) - & one of Kahlua so we could continue with the Black Russians. Party girls in London aren't as cute as here, but they're as persistent & freeloading. Some slags attempted to pour themselves drinks from our bottles though we didn't know them. Plus they kept trying to talk to SE & slinking away if I came within eyeshot. I've been working on my jealousy & trusting SE more, so after the initial impulse to kick their flabby asses, I found the humor in the situation. The music was pretty good, I really liked SE's friends, & vodka + Kahlua + Red Bull is a nice potent cocktail. I tend to make crazy drinks if left to my own devices, since I can't really taste alcohol unless it's about 80% of the drink. Pretty odd considering my pickiness with food tastes.
We had a great night & came home at maybe 2:30. I couldn't sleep right away & dove back into Harry Potter. SE was woken up by sobbing then & 5 hours later when I woke up ridiculously early (as usual after drinking) & was finishing the book. I must have spent a good 1/3 of it bawling, which is not necessarily because sad things happen - don't want to spoil it for anyone - but how intense & emotionally involving it is.
The next morning one of SE's college friends took us on a walking tour of Westminster which was really interesting. We did some pub-hopping afterwards, saw my friend who moved to London 2 years ago, & had a nice casual dinner at Busaba Eathai on Wardour St. Thai food is hugely popular in London. I think people see it the way we New Yorkers look at Japanese - healthy, yummy & tasty. There are Japanese restaurants but not so many as in NYC. SE & I were very tired, so we went home in the rain instead of staying out even though it was Saturday.
We took a train from Victoria Station to his parents' in Sussex - I was pretty nervous since I'd never stayed at a boyfriend's family home before. They were very sweet & I tried to be helpful. His mother made toad-in-the-hole one night because I'd read about it in a book as a kid, Dahl's Danny the Champion of the World, & never had it. Sausages baked in batter, nothin' wrong with that. SE showed me around the neighborhood, his old school, the trees he used to climb, paths he used to ride his bike on, stuff like that; really cute. I can just imagine him as a boy getting into trouble & outwitting the other kids. He also took me to Brighton, which was cool because I've read about it in lots of books. I met one of SE's childhood friends with his new wife - good example for SE - & they were delightful, plus I learned some embarrassing things about SE when he was little. I'm happy I finally have some stuff to tease him about.
Tuesday morning we went back to London for lunch with his friend who's getting married in November. SE had told me lots about her, how they went to college together, were roommates with 2 other girls & he had a crush on her for a long time so I was a little jealous but once I met her I thought she was lovely & we got along very well. Later we met one of SE's old work colleagues at Ronnie Scott's, a famous jazz club on Frith which makes amazing drinks, before dim sum at the very fancy Yauatcha on Broadwick. It was quite good, maybe the not best in the world but they did a great congee & once I spoke Chinese to the waiters they were falling all over themselves to make sure we were happy. Then one of the best parts of our London trip - we went to Stringfellows after dinner! It's a very upscale strip club & girls can get naked in London, top AND bottom! I had a dance from a wife & wife team (or so they said) & some other hotties. Plus those girls know how to work a pole, oh boy. Flashdancers except better & much hotter. We had a really good night.
The next day SE did some touristy stuff with me; we wanted to go on the London Eye but the line looked too long. The Aquarium is right there as well [see right] - they have storm troopers on the roof! There was some crazy Star Wars exhibit going on.
There was also a Dalí exhibit in the same building so they had sculptures of Dalí paintings outside.
We decided to check out the London Dungeon, which looked delightfully scary. Fortunately we got a FastPass by the Aquarium & didn't have to wait too long. Now, it's quite cheesy & funny but if you're easily startled like me, it's terrifying. The actors jump out at you & wear ghoulish face paint that makes them look dead &/or severely injured so even when they're just walking around they're still awful. We learned about the Great Plague, torture techniques, the Great Fire, Sweeney Todd & Jack the Ripper. I enjoyed the real torture instruments on display but everything else was a re-creation. I was so scared that during the Sweeney Todd part, I refused to lean back in my chair as directed & missed the faux throat-slitting. Not a problem. At the end there's a "free fall" ride. After 1.5 hours of looking around nervously & getting the crap scared or startled out of me every 5 minutes I was completely demoralized, & although it was only a small drop, I screamed like a banshee. Of course they took a picture at that moment & I wish I could show you, because it's the most terrified look I've ever seen on my or anyone else's face. My eyes are popping out & my mouth is open so wide my jaw seems ready to fall off. SE recognized its comic gold & bought it, & every time we look at it we still crack up, it's so ridiculous.
SE showed me around Canary Wharf & the City (the financial area of London) after that. We rode the Docklands Light Railway & I saw bankers in their current preferred habitat. Business is increasingly flowing to the City - the dollar's weakness is really fucking NYC. I like the architecture there, especially the Gherkin, properly known as the Swiss RE building at 30 St. Mary's Axe.
We had dinner with another childhood playmate of SE's at the best kosher restaurant in the city, Bevis Marks, because the friend is converting to Orthodox Judaism. I didn't know much about kosher & just figured it would be crappy like vegetarian food, but this place was great. The Thai crispy beef salad, matzoh ball soup, lamb & salmon were all amazing. Kosherness doesn't seem to make a difference in taste, it just restricts the kinds of foods you can put together.
Thursday, our last full day, we went shopping. First Harvey Nichols, where I had a severe case of sticker shock. Everything is so much more expensive there, they think a rack of £900 ($1800) & under is "on sale." My favorite wish was a luscious pair of leather ankle boots by McQueen with python trim & a skull zipper detail (sorry, Treo takes bad pix) that I really wanted... told my footslave about them. Obviously I didn't buy anything, & got bored perambulating so I went to check on SE who had succumbed to temptation & got a $100 Evisu t-shirt. Silly boy. We then visited the eyesore that is Harrod's - clearly money doesn't buy taste. Although, it's kind of fun looking at the horrible stuff & guessing what outlandish price it is. The most disgusting part was a Dodi & Princess Diana memorial that had an unwashed wine glass from their last night & the engagement ring he got for her the day before. That thing was an utter monstrosity. It's almost the size of my fist & covered in pavé diamonds with an enormous rock in the middle. The placard underneath said this was "proof of their love." Proof of bad taste & Daddy being a billionaire, more like. I would only call that proper proof if Dodi bought it on a janitor's salary. SE was annoyed with the spurious reasoning, though his opinions are a bit skewed when it comes to jewelry & big gifts like that since he's a banker & sees colleagues make those hollow gestures all the time while cheating on their wives. I don't know - I still believe you can do nice things & mean them. We're both cynical romantics but he leans more to the cynical side than I do.
Around 4 we met up with SE's college buddy who just got married (SE was best man & threw him a bachelor weekend in Krakow). He's really cool. Plus I heard some more stories about stupid or asshole things SE did, which wasn't always very comforting - I worry if he's really a changed man now - but hilarious nonetheless. We gathered more friends as we moved from bar to bar, ending up at a Wagamama. It's a yummy UK noodle chain that strongly reminds me of Republic in Union Square. SE said the one we went to was not representative of their normally high quality but I quite liked my ramen. Sadly, in America only Boston has the pleasure of Wagamamas at this point. We went to one more pub after dinner & then everyone headed home.
The next morning SE got birthday sex & I took him out to lunch & the Transformers movie. Liked the first 2 a lot. The Transformers were a little before my time & I hardly knew what they were growing up so I wasn't as into the movie as SE was. The story was also achingly stupid, but I thought the transformations were super cool & the leading ladies very yummy. That Megan Fox has a heartbreaking pair of legs. & Rachael Taylor was what I'd want to look like if I were blonde. SE was excited as a little boy & it was worth the £19.50 ($39, London is crazy!) to see that smile on his face. & that, boys & girls, was the conclusion of our grand tour.
Friday SE had some visa issues to sort out at the embassy so I had to amuse myself all day. After breakfast & getting very specific directions from place to place on the tube, , I set off on my explorations. First stop: British Library. I got distracted by Top Shop in Oxford Circus though. I'd read that it's a high street store & that Kate Moss had a line there, so of course I had to see for myself. (Sadly, her stuff was a bit out of budget.) I ended up with a cute polka-dot dress & black lace leggings. SE later explained to me that "high street" doesn't mean really good, as I'd thought, it means the shop is on every high street (meaning "main street"). Basically it's a more stylish H&M. After an hour I dragged myself away & onto the Tube. We love to complain about the subway in NYC but we still only pay $2/ride here & $7 for an all-day pass. The Tube is £4/ride & £5.10/day - that's $8 & $10.20 respectively! They have an unlimited Oyster card which is generally £1.50/ride, but I can't buy one online unless I have a London address so it's still much more expensive for visitors. The trains do come a lot more often, but there's no air conditioning on the trains & they are generally much further underground. I saw electric signs in every station keeping passengers updated about which lines were working, which hints at frequent problems, & though I didn't experience delays myself all the Londoners I talked to complained about unreliability. It's more of a problem there because cabs are also much pricier, so when there's a Tube issue, jumping in a cab is not as easy. Although the cabs are so much nicer I almost think they're worth it. They look really cool, like better PT Cruisers; they're roomy inside, so 5 people or fewer plus luggage can get in comfortably; you can have privacy or talk to the driver by pressing a button; lots of the cars have phones inside, like on an airplane except free; & there are often phone & iPod chargers built into a side panel. I want LTI, the carmaker, to come over here.
So where was I? Right, on my way to the British Library. It's a beautiful building inside & out. There's a very interesting exhibit called Sacred, about ancient manuscripts of Judaism, Islam & Christianity, especially the Torah, Qu'ran & Bible. I've always thought Arabic a lovely-looking language. & seeing it with gold leaf, calligraphy & painstakingly drawn details made quite an impression. I wish I could get a tattoo in Arabic but that would probably be a bit silly. As much as I love the concept of libraries, they get kind of boring after ~5 minutes if I'm not reading so when I was done wandering around the exhibits I made my way to the British Museum. I meandered around the Chinese, Central America, Japanese, Enlightenment & various other rooms. I checked on the Egyptian mummies, too - we didn't see any in the Egyptian Museum, go figure. They are super creepy & I stayed about 4 seconds, long enough to read the description, before I was too nervous to stay touching-distance from a very lifelike dead body. Eventually I got tired of walking around & being by myself in a strange city & decided to go home. I got off the Tube at Oxford Circus & that's when I realized that I hadn't asked SE how to walk from there to the apartment. I couldn't remember how I got to the station initially because I'd gotten lost & asked about 5 people. Plus my sense of direction is nonexistent. I didn't have a map & thought the apartment was northwest of the station when it was actually northeast & didn't recognize landmarks correctly so I spent about 2 hours walking around in circles with painful shoes. I couldn't call SE & was so clueless that when he called to see if I was coming home, I mistakenly thought I was almost there & didn't ask for help so I was unnecessarily lost for another half hour. At length I found the right street & got safely home. Fortunately we had a bit of time for me to gather my wits before meeting some of his friends at an All Bar One (it's a chain) on Henrietta St.
A few glasses of champagne sorted me out nicely. We went to Bar Shu on Frith St. to meet SE's old colleague & his current girlfriend. Bar Shu is an absolutely fantastic Szechuan restaurant, better than in New York - I was so happy. We all got along very well & continued on to Milk & Honey for a drink, where another friend of SE's met us. Since it was a Friday night SE wanted to see how the London club scene was doing & off we 5 went to Paper. We got a bottle of vodka - if you think NYC clubs are bad, imagine paying the same price in £s (= 2 x $s) - & one of Kahlua so we could continue with the Black Russians. Party girls in London aren't as cute as here, but they're as persistent & freeloading. Some slags attempted to pour themselves drinks from our bottles though we didn't know them. Plus they kept trying to talk to SE & slinking away if I came within eyeshot. I've been working on my jealousy & trusting SE more, so after the initial impulse to kick their flabby asses, I found the humor in the situation. The music was pretty good, I really liked SE's friends, & vodka + Kahlua + Red Bull is a nice potent cocktail. I tend to make crazy drinks if left to my own devices, since I can't really taste alcohol unless it's about 80% of the drink. Pretty odd considering my pickiness with food tastes.
We had a great night & came home at maybe 2:30. I couldn't sleep right away & dove back into Harry Potter. SE was woken up by sobbing then & 5 hours later when I woke up ridiculously early (as usual after drinking) & was finishing the book. I must have spent a good 1/3 of it bawling, which is not necessarily because sad things happen - don't want to spoil it for anyone - but how intense & emotionally involving it is.
The next morning one of SE's college friends took us on a walking tour of Westminster which was really interesting. We did some pub-hopping afterwards, saw my friend who moved to London 2 years ago, & had a nice casual dinner at Busaba Eathai on Wardour St. Thai food is hugely popular in London. I think people see it the way we New Yorkers look at Japanese - healthy, yummy & tasty. There are Japanese restaurants but not so many as in NYC. SE & I were very tired, so we went home in the rain instead of staying out even though it was Saturday.
We took a train from Victoria Station to his parents' in Sussex - I was pretty nervous since I'd never stayed at a boyfriend's family home before. They were very sweet & I tried to be helpful. His mother made toad-in-the-hole one night because I'd read about it in a book as a kid, Dahl's Danny the Champion of the World, & never had it. Sausages baked in batter, nothin' wrong with that. SE showed me around the neighborhood, his old school, the trees he used to climb, paths he used to ride his bike on, stuff like that; really cute. I can just imagine him as a boy getting into trouble & outwitting the other kids. He also took me to Brighton, which was cool because I've read about it in lots of books. I met one of SE's childhood friends with his new wife - good example for SE - & they were delightful, plus I learned some embarrassing things about SE when he was little. I'm happy I finally have some stuff to tease him about.
Tuesday morning we went back to London for lunch with his friend who's getting married in November. SE had told me lots about her, how they went to college together, were roommates with 2 other girls & he had a crush on her for a long time so I was a little jealous but once I met her I thought she was lovely & we got along very well. Later we met one of SE's old work colleagues at Ronnie Scott's, a famous jazz club on Frith which makes amazing drinks, before dim sum at the very fancy Yauatcha on Broadwick. It was quite good, maybe the not best in the world but they did a great congee & once I spoke Chinese to the waiters they were falling all over themselves to make sure we were happy. Then one of the best parts of our London trip - we went to Stringfellows after dinner! It's a very upscale strip club & girls can get naked in London, top AND bottom! I had a dance from a wife & wife team (or so they said) & some other hotties. Plus those girls know how to work a pole, oh boy. Flashdancers except better & much hotter. We had a really good night.
The next day SE did some touristy stuff with me; we wanted to go on the London Eye but the line looked too long. The Aquarium is right there as well [see right] - they have storm troopers on the roof! There was some crazy Star Wars exhibit going on.
There was also a Dalí exhibit in the same building so they had sculptures of Dalí paintings outside.We decided to check out the London Dungeon, which looked delightfully scary. Fortunately we got a FastPass by the Aquarium & didn't have to wait too long. Now, it's quite cheesy & funny but if you're easily startled like me, it's terrifying. The actors jump out at you & wear ghoulish face paint that makes them look dead &/or severely injured so even when they're just walking around they're still awful. We learned about the Great Plague, torture techniques, the Great Fire, Sweeney Todd & Jack the Ripper. I enjoyed the real torture instruments on display but everything else was a re-creation. I was so scared that during the Sweeney Todd part, I refused to lean back in my chair as directed & missed the faux throat-slitting. Not a problem. At the end there's a "free fall" ride. After 1.5 hours of looking around nervously & getting the crap scared or startled out of me every 5 minutes I was completely demoralized, & although it was only a small drop, I screamed like a banshee. Of course they took a picture at that moment & I wish I could show you, because it's the most terrified look I've ever seen on my or anyone else's face. My eyes are popping out & my mouth is open so wide my jaw seems ready to fall off. SE recognized its comic gold & bought it, & every time we look at it we still crack up, it's so ridiculous.
SE showed me around Canary Wharf & the City (the financial area of London) after that. We rode the Docklands Light Railway & I saw bankers in their current preferred habitat. Business is increasingly flowing to the City - the dollar's weakness is really fucking NYC. I like the architecture there, especially the Gherkin, properly known as the Swiss RE building at 30 St. Mary's Axe.
We had dinner with another childhood playmate of SE's at the best kosher restaurant in the city, Bevis Marks, because the friend is converting to Orthodox Judaism. I didn't know much about kosher & just figured it would be crappy like vegetarian food, but this place was great. The Thai crispy beef salad, matzoh ball soup, lamb & salmon were all amazing. Kosherness doesn't seem to make a difference in taste, it just restricts the kinds of foods you can put together.
Thursday, our last full day, we went shopping. First Harvey Nichols, where I had a severe case of sticker shock. Everything is so much more expensive there, they think a rack of £900 ($1800) & under is "on sale." My favorite wish was a luscious pair of leather ankle boots by McQueen with python trim & a skull zipper detail (sorry, Treo takes bad pix) that I really wanted... told my footslave about them. Obviously I didn't buy anything, & got bored perambulating so I went to check on SE who had succumbed to temptation & got a $100 Evisu t-shirt. Silly boy. We then visited the eyesore that is Harrod's - clearly money doesn't buy taste. Although, it's kind of fun looking at the horrible stuff & guessing what outlandish price it is. The most disgusting part was a Dodi & Princess Diana memorial that had an unwashed wine glass from their last night & the engagement ring he got for her the day before. That thing was an utter monstrosity. It's almost the size of my fist & covered in pavé diamonds with an enormous rock in the middle. The placard underneath said this was "proof of their love." Proof of bad taste & Daddy being a billionaire, more like. I would only call that proper proof if Dodi bought it on a janitor's salary. SE was annoyed with the spurious reasoning, though his opinions are a bit skewed when it comes to jewelry & big gifts like that since he's a banker & sees colleagues make those hollow gestures all the time while cheating on their wives. I don't know - I still believe you can do nice things & mean them. We're both cynical romantics but he leans more to the cynical side than I do.Around 4 we met up with SE's college buddy who just got married (SE was best man & threw him a bachelor weekend in Krakow). He's really cool. Plus I heard some more stories about stupid or asshole things SE did, which wasn't always very comforting - I worry if he's really a changed man now - but hilarious nonetheless. We gathered more friends as we moved from bar to bar, ending up at a Wagamama. It's a yummy UK noodle chain that strongly reminds me of Republic in Union Square. SE said the one we went to was not representative of their normally high quality but I quite liked my ramen. Sadly, in America only Boston has the pleasure of Wagamamas at this point. We went to one more pub after dinner & then everyone headed home.
The next morning SE got birthday sex & I took him out to lunch & the Transformers movie. Liked the first 2 a lot. The Transformers were a little before my time & I hardly knew what they were growing up so I wasn't as into the movie as SE was. The story was also achingly stupid, but I thought the transformations were super cool & the leading ladies very yummy. That Megan Fox has a heartbreaking pair of legs. & Rachael Taylor was what I'd want to look like if I were blonde. SE was excited as a little boy & it was worth the £19.50 ($39, London is crazy!) to see that smile on his face. & that, boys & girls, was the conclusion of our grand tour.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Crackberry posting
A) I'm very bored & b) I like playing with my crackberry so I'm testing out the browser. The keyboard isn't quite as sensitive as the Treo's, & I spent 2 HOURS on the phone (different line, of course) with Verizon this morning getting 'Berry synced to my calendar, address book, etc. Had to go through Outlook eventually. When it finally worked, I had another hour on the phone trying to make the BB display my calendar properly in the past as well as now. I ended up discovering the problem myself - under configuration 2 screens into the sync program, I had to check off the option for syncing past as well as future, something like that. Jesus tap-dancing Christ. Too bad the Verizon guy didn't think to check all configurations at first.
Difficulties aside, I am very impressed with their customer service & tech support. Yesterday both techs were awesome & helpful - today's 2 people were wonderful as well. The only way they could be better is if they made house calls. It kinda sucks that I had to spend about 5 hours getting the 'Berry to work because of issues that should have been addressed in the manual, but that was the most pleasant customer service experience I've ever had.
In other news, today's NY Times crossword is cute like a Thursday. By cute I mean "You think you cute! Bitch I'm gonna whip your ass" not "oh cute puppy." Thursdays frequently have one word that fits in one box & is repeated throughout the puzzle. I won't give away any more.
Last night SE & I had a date but our friends had an extra ticket to the Yankees game he'd been supposed to go to, so off he went. I was a less-than-happy camper but whatever, he was going to go before anyway. I was home sorting out the BlackBerry with tech support when my doorbell rings & there's SE with pretty pink lilies & Tasti-Delite! (After the game.) I was totally floored. Just when I think he's a normal guy he reminds me of why he's my Prince Charming. :)
Difficulties aside, I am very impressed with their customer service & tech support. Yesterday both techs were awesome & helpful - today's 2 people were wonderful as well. The only way they could be better is if they made house calls. It kinda sucks that I had to spend about 5 hours getting the 'Berry to work because of issues that should have been addressed in the manual, but that was the most pleasant customer service experience I've ever had.
In other news, today's NY Times crossword is cute like a Thursday. By cute I mean "You think you cute! Bitch I'm gonna whip your ass" not "oh cute puppy." Thursdays frequently have one word that fits in one box & is repeated throughout the puzzle. I won't give away any more.
Last night SE & I had a date but our friends had an extra ticket to the Yankees game he'd been supposed to go to, so off he went. I was a less-than-happy camper but whatever, he was going to go before anyway. I was home sorting out the BlackBerry with tech support when my doorbell rings & there's SE with pretty pink lilies & Tasti-Delite! (After the game.) I was totally floored. Just when I think he's a normal guy he reminds me of why he's my Prince Charming. :)
It's lonely being a skeptical empiricist
They like to play the lottery at my work, because we hate it here so much. Almost everyone puts in $2 or $5. The jackpot is currently ~$250 million but today I thought of The Black Swan (great, go read it & his first book) & didn't waste my meager lunch money. It's so seductive though. I can't help thinking how much I could use $10 million & how wonderful it'd be if I won, despite knowing perfectly well that I have 30 times more chance of being struck by lightning than winning. Of course, Taleb's discussion is of the black swans that do happen, but this is the flip side of people's wishful belief that crazy stuff won't occur. I liked the idea he champions of being a skeptical empiricist - it's just hard to fight human nature, which wants to find patterns & reasons in random things. Anyway, I hope as a nice person that my colleagues win, but I also hope like hell that they don't because I'll feel like the biggest fool.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
A Farewell to Palms
I finally gave up on my Treo. I cannot stand it freezing or randomly restarting any more. I've had a Palm for 12 years, so it was quite a wrench. In 1995 my parents got me an m505 (the most basic kind) for xmas. I upgraded over the years, culminating in a Treo 600 2 years ago & a 700 this year, & have loved & hated them ever since. The design has gotten better & better; Treos are great to keep things organized, but the software problems with Verizon were awful. I've had to replace the Treo probably 5 or 6 times in 2 years, none of which was ever because I lost it, was robbed or damaged it. I don't know what Verizon's problem is. It's unacceptable for a PDA to freeze if I send a couple texts in rapid succession, or if someone texts me while I'm typing. I understand that many of these problems are supposed to be a result of insufficient memory, flash or something. Whatever. Before you sell a phone you should make sure it works under normal usage, otherwise your job is not done.
All that said, I loved the user-friendly format & well-thought-out little details Palm excels at. A couple things the Treo does better than the BlackBerry: calendar events compress the hours. The BB continues to show a line for every hour regardless, which sometimes makes it annoying to see what I have for a whole day. E.g., when I work at Giant Multinational Corporation, 8:30-6 should be one line, not 10. & if I have a recurring event, I can't change one & make the future ones reflect that change, I can only change all or one. I sorely miss the categories in my to-do list. I miss dedicated buttons for calendar, memo, texts, tasks, phone & keyboard lock. The 'Berry only has 1. At the moment I can't get the Treo-'Berry sync wizard to work, but assuming that gets sorted out, the BlackBerry is great & everyone I know who got the same 8830 loves it. But I miss my faithful (if not always able) buddy. *sniffle*Update: it does have categories. You hit the BB key, go to Filters, & if you've got your stuff sorted like I do, from the Treo, you can pick a category you want to view & voilà! Really glad I fiddled around & discovered that.
Sharm el-Sheikh: 7.5/10
In the Economist I kept reading about the recent US - Middle Eastern summit about Iraq in Sharm & finally we were there ourselves. It's absolutely lovely. It was summer, though, & noticeably hotter than Cairo. Lonely Planet (LP) had led us to expect we'd be dying in 40°C (104°F) heat there but it wasn't actually that hot. Sharm, despite the Red Sea, was around that temperature & felt it. Going outside was like putting on a heated blanket. We'd step outside in as little clothing as possible & be like, "How far is it? 5 yards? Gah, too far!" Lying in the shade by the pool was only bearable with periodic dips in the water, it was that sizzling out. We had a nice shady room with plentiful air conditioning though. & a very very friendly cleaning man who is wasting his flower-arranging talents there.
This was waiting for us when we checked in. I happened to meet Mohammed later in my bikini, which seemed to make a big impression on him even though I was mostly behind our door. His arrangements became increasingly elaborate each day:
He was extremely attentive during our stay, always asking me or Sexy Englishman how the other was & checking on me when I got lost once, but it definitively tipped over into creepiness when we checked out. We were doing last-minute packing. He came to say goodbye & ask for SE's address, cell phone number & then our picture. Really bizarre. Especially when he gave us his address as Housekeeping at Hilton Fayrouz. We did really enjoy our flowers though, & marveled at the feat of engineering which is the peacock at the end. The blue neck is a towel, artfully folded to stand up.
Our first night, Saturday, we were too hot to do anything except have dinner & go to sleep. We lounged by the pool in the morning while deciding on activities, & went quad driving in the desert later that night. It's so cool! They're little ATVs that go about 20 mph, which feels fast & exciting when you're bouncing over ruts & can hear & feel the engine revving. We had to go in single file but on the way out they let us go pretty fast. We stopped in a couple places to look at scenery & the only part I didn't like was when some teenage punks kept riding my tail on the way back. The asshole directly behind me actually bumped me once. I couldn't go any faster, since we had to follow the guide strictly & were kept in line by other guides on motorbikes. It was super fun - I'd love to just rent one & go explore by myself. We had dinner at Safsafa in the Na'ama Center mall complex (see LP for more info about most places I mention here) which was pretty good. That whole area of Na'ama Bay was hopping every night, even though it was the low season. It was nice to be able to walk around & see what was going on without getting in a cab. Although running the gauntlet of hawkers was a trial every time. Generally we just tried not to get drawn into conversation.
On Monday we did a snorkeling trip into Ras Mohammed, the national park protecting the reef. I can't believe how beautiful it is! The reefs starts just right there off the shore, barely a foot below the surface. We saw so many incredible creatures especially a lionfish, lots of colorful parrotfish, pikefish, etc. I got over my fear of snorkeling too. I used to be a swim champion & I've always panicked at breathing underwater. Just couldn't get used to it. This time the fish & coral distracted me, & once I got the hang of it I could let go of the blind panic & concentrate on looking around. Very happy about that. We snorkeled for hours, so much that I actually got the first sunburn of my life. I refused to believe that was what it was when SE pointed it out - I scoffed until I realized that it hurt & was red & generally exhibited the same characteristics as SE's frequent burns (he has classic fair English skin). We had so much fun we decided to SCUBA the next day. He has his PADI open water certification but hasn't done it in 5 years, & I'd never done it at all, so I just did a beginner dive from the boat & he came along to snorkel, opting out of the rather time-consuming refresher course. It's pretty cool. I had a hard time keeping the breather thing in my mouth & those tanks are awfully heavy but it's so cool to just swim right down to whatever's interesting & not have to come up for air after a minute like when snorkeling. I finally figured out how to equalize pressure in my head properly (hadn't quite got it the day before) & had a lovely time. Unfortunately I ended up with an ear infection later. When we woke up from our nap I noticed an earache. We started playing Scrabble waiting for the heat to lessen so we could have dinner, & the throbbing increased to metal spike level. I was whimpering & couldn't concentrate so we called the hotel doctor. He prescribed me nose drops, antibiotics & 2 types of ear drops for my "major ear infection." The drops, Advil & Excedrin made me feel ok enough to venture out for dinner.
We went to Da Franco (as LP suggested), close to the Hilton on the road by the beach, which was all right. The night before we went to Pomodoro at the Camel Hotel because it was the busiest restaurant on that strip but that didn't pan out either - it wasn't very good except for the potato leek soup. I could happily eat a gallon of that. We kept wanting to try Pacha Sharm but couldn't tell from outside if it'd be good, plus we figured it'd be the same as Pacha NYC with the overpriced, watered down drinks. & it's always more fun with a group of friends than just 2 of us anyway. Wednesday, our last full day, we met an American couple by the pool who were amazingly similar to us. They'd taken practically the same trip to South Africa before, they were from NYC, the list went on & on. We got along so well we made plans to hang out later. SE & I spent a lazy day between pool & a/c'd room, since I couldn't go in the ocean to protect my ear & SE was too hot. We had a few drinks with Cute American Couple at the Pirates Bar in the hotel & then wandered over to Na'ama Bay & settled on Fawanes for dinner. This was again courtesy of LP, but CAGirl & I were decidedly unamused by the cockroach that scuttled over our pita bread towards the end! The food was ok, not great - SE & I concluded that LP generally has a bias towards backpackers & their lean wallets, because their descriptions of most restaurants turned out to be exaggerated to us, coming from NYC & haute cuisine as we were. We soothed our feelings with a sheesha (water pipe) at Viva on the beach after the scary bug incident. CAC were really nice & hopefully next time we go out to Cali, where they just moved, we'll hang out with them again.
We had another cabbie incident on the way to the airport which was the final straw for SE. This one tried to tell us the fare was double - £100 - what the hotel said it was - £50 - & SE lost his temper. We had trouble getting to the right terminal what with our new-fangled e-tickets & me accused of being "China" again for about 5 minutes. I don't understand the problem, we saw a lot of American-Asian tourists, it can't be that weird to them. When we did at length get to the right place they were completely confounded by the e-tickets. We got them to accept that the tickets were real by showing them the itinerary SE had drawn up for us, although they would keep flipping to irrelevant pages over & over despite our attempts to keep them focused. "No, no, just this flight here, Sharm to Vienna to London - no we already did all this [first 6 pages], we're not going to South Africa." It turned out when we got to Austria that we didn't actually have e-tickets. They'd FedExed the paper tickets to Cairo for some unfathomable reason. We managed to get everything straightened out, luckily.
In Vienna I couldn't resist buying Chanel nail polish at duty free, since I hadn't found a salon in Sharm & wanted to look presentable for SE's friends. Sand, ocean & general traveling really take a lot out of paint. Most importantly, I picked up Harry Potter (& was probably the only person to pay full price that week - €30 = ~$40! Should have waited for the London price of £6.) I've been a fan since I read the first one, & if you haven't read it yet, you're in for a lot of crying. SE kept looking at my leaky eyes & trying not to laugh. In any case we made it safely to London in time for dinner.
This was waiting for us when we checked in. I happened to meet Mohammed later in my bikini, which seemed to make a big impression on him even though I was mostly behind our door. His arrangements became increasingly elaborate each day:
He was extremely attentive during our stay, always asking me or Sexy Englishman how the other was & checking on me when I got lost once, but it definitively tipped over into creepiness when we checked out. We were doing last-minute packing. He came to say goodbye & ask for SE's address, cell phone number & then our picture. Really bizarre. Especially when he gave us his address as Housekeeping at Hilton Fayrouz. We did really enjoy our flowers though, & marveled at the feat of engineering which is the peacock at the end. The blue neck is a towel, artfully folded to stand up.Our first night, Saturday, we were too hot to do anything except have dinner & go to sleep. We lounged by the pool in the morning while deciding on activities, & went quad driving in the desert later that night. It's so cool! They're little ATVs that go about 20 mph, which feels fast & exciting when you're bouncing over ruts & can hear & feel the engine revving. We had to go in single file but on the way out they let us go pretty fast. We stopped in a couple places to look at scenery & the only part I didn't like was when some teenage punks kept riding my tail on the way back. The asshole directly behind me actually bumped me once. I couldn't go any faster, since we had to follow the guide strictly & were kept in line by other guides on motorbikes. It was super fun - I'd love to just rent one & go explore by myself. We had dinner at Safsafa in the Na'ama Center mall complex (see LP for more info about most places I mention here) which was pretty good. That whole area of Na'ama Bay was hopping every night, even though it was the low season. It was nice to be able to walk around & see what was going on without getting in a cab. Although running the gauntlet of hawkers was a trial every time. Generally we just tried not to get drawn into conversation.
On Monday we did a snorkeling trip into Ras Mohammed, the national park protecting the reef. I can't believe how beautiful it is! The reefs starts just right there off the shore, barely a foot below the surface. We saw so many incredible creatures especially a lionfish, lots of colorful parrotfish, pikefish, etc. I got over my fear of snorkeling too. I used to be a swim champion & I've always panicked at breathing underwater. Just couldn't get used to it. This time the fish & coral distracted me, & once I got the hang of it I could let go of the blind panic & concentrate on looking around. Very happy about that. We snorkeled for hours, so much that I actually got the first sunburn of my life. I refused to believe that was what it was when SE pointed it out - I scoffed until I realized that it hurt & was red & generally exhibited the same characteristics as SE's frequent burns (he has classic fair English skin). We had so much fun we decided to SCUBA the next day. He has his PADI open water certification but hasn't done it in 5 years, & I'd never done it at all, so I just did a beginner dive from the boat & he came along to snorkel, opting out of the rather time-consuming refresher course. It's pretty cool. I had a hard time keeping the breather thing in my mouth & those tanks are awfully heavy but it's so cool to just swim right down to whatever's interesting & not have to come up for air after a minute like when snorkeling. I finally figured out how to equalize pressure in my head properly (hadn't quite got it the day before) & had a lovely time. Unfortunately I ended up with an ear infection later. When we woke up from our nap I noticed an earache. We started playing Scrabble waiting for the heat to lessen so we could have dinner, & the throbbing increased to metal spike level. I was whimpering & couldn't concentrate so we called the hotel doctor. He prescribed me nose drops, antibiotics & 2 types of ear drops for my "major ear infection." The drops, Advil & Excedrin made me feel ok enough to venture out for dinner.
We went to Da Franco (as LP suggested), close to the Hilton on the road by the beach, which was all right. The night before we went to Pomodoro at the Camel Hotel because it was the busiest restaurant on that strip but that didn't pan out either - it wasn't very good except for the potato leek soup. I could happily eat a gallon of that. We kept wanting to try Pacha Sharm but couldn't tell from outside if it'd be good, plus we figured it'd be the same as Pacha NYC with the overpriced, watered down drinks. & it's always more fun with a group of friends than just 2 of us anyway. Wednesday, our last full day, we met an American couple by the pool who were amazingly similar to us. They'd taken practically the same trip to South Africa before, they were from NYC, the list went on & on. We got along so well we made plans to hang out later. SE & I spent a lazy day between pool & a/c'd room, since I couldn't go in the ocean to protect my ear & SE was too hot. We had a few drinks with Cute American Couple at the Pirates Bar in the hotel & then wandered over to Na'ama Bay & settled on Fawanes for dinner. This was again courtesy of LP, but CAGirl & I were decidedly unamused by the cockroach that scuttled over our pita bread towards the end! The food was ok, not great - SE & I concluded that LP generally has a bias towards backpackers & their lean wallets, because their descriptions of most restaurants turned out to be exaggerated to us, coming from NYC & haute cuisine as we were. We soothed our feelings with a sheesha (water pipe) at Viva on the beach after the scary bug incident. CAC were really nice & hopefully next time we go out to Cali, where they just moved, we'll hang out with them again.
We had another cabbie incident on the way to the airport which was the final straw for SE. This one tried to tell us the fare was double - £100 - what the hotel said it was - £50 - & SE lost his temper. We had trouble getting to the right terminal what with our new-fangled e-tickets & me accused of being "China" again for about 5 minutes. I don't understand the problem, we saw a lot of American-Asian tourists, it can't be that weird to them. When we did at length get to the right place they were completely confounded by the e-tickets. We got them to accept that the tickets were real by showing them the itinerary SE had drawn up for us, although they would keep flipping to irrelevant pages over & over despite our attempts to keep them focused. "No, no, just this flight here, Sharm to Vienna to London - no we already did all this [first 6 pages], we're not going to South Africa." It turned out when we got to Austria that we didn't actually have e-tickets. They'd FedExed the paper tickets to Cairo for some unfathomable reason. We managed to get everything straightened out, luckily.
In Vienna I couldn't resist buying Chanel nail polish at duty free, since I hadn't found a salon in Sharm & wanted to look presentable for SE's friends. Sand, ocean & general traveling really take a lot out of paint. Most importantly, I picked up Harry Potter (& was probably the only person to pay full price that week - €30 = ~$40! Should have waited for the London price of £6.) I've been a fan since I read the first one, & if you haven't read it yet, you're in for a lot of crying. SE kept looking at my leaky eyes & trying not to laugh. In any case we made it safely to London in time for dinner.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Cairo: 7.5/10
I'm so bored at work that I'm writing these posts out longhand & typing them when I have time, which is why I'm posting a lot more than I thought I would. Continuing on... We arrived in Egypt very early & were greeted by someone our hotel sent. He didn't have to wait outside baggage claim; he walked us through customs in what would have been record time if the official hadn't looked at me & kept insisting "you China!" despite my American passport. After frightening me for a while he said he was joking & let us through. How amusing. At long last we were driven to the Mena House Oberoi, a lovely old palatial hunting lodge-turned-hotel. It is literally across the street from the Pyramids, as Giza is now an area of Cairo. We got a Pyramid view room. Basically, when we woke up each morning it was like, "Oh look honey, out the window!" We had a lovely spacious room with lounge area & lots of space for our bags. There were balconies for our French doors as well. It was fun to walk into the heat in the mornings then go back into air conditioning. I was pretty good this trip - for four weeks I packed a big suitcase & a tiny one only. Usually I need the big one for just a week so I was very restrained. We were exhausted after all the jumping off bridges & baiting great white sharks with ourselves so we had a very quiet first day by the pool. Other than the maddeningly persistent flies, it was lovely. The pool is an enormous oval & there's a guitarist who plays all afternoon. Sexy Englishman dozed & read The Elegant Universe, a gift from me, while I caught up on more Economists & Mind Performance Hacks.
I don't understand how Arab women can stand being so hot in those burqas. It was about 95° & I couldn't bear wearing much more than a bikini! (Although I did, of course, I'm not stupid.) I find it odd that a religion mandating so much black clothing popped up in the desert of all places, instead of Scandinavia or something. I guess it's because people wanted to wear so little that men had to be "protected" from temptation. Learn some self-control, boys, jeez. According to the Lonely Planet guide (LP), it is wise for a woman traveler to just say her male companion is her husband, because they respect married women much more. Since a good Muslim girl has to be a virgin for her wedding night, foreign women are their chance for easy pussy. LP also said to keep as much of myself covered as possible. SE wasn't quite ready for a Mrs. SE but my safety won out. He'd made fun of me all through South Africa for packing so many long-sleeved shirts & pants & I was finally vindicated when man after man stopped & turned to stare at me regardless. One guy even tripped in the street while walking backwards, staring. To be fair, I think part of it may have been that they never see any young attractive Asian women, only old Japanese & Chinese tourists, but it was still disconcerting & made me nervous. It was much funnier when hawkers jokingly tried to buy me from SE for outrageous numbers of camels - the highest offer he got was 100 million. Each one is worth ~$1000 so it's lucky the 7-year-old kid didn't seem to actually have any camels or I'd be trapped in some harem right now.
That first night we went to the Sound & Light Show "narrated" by the Sphinx. It's super cheesy & pompous, although it's cool to see the Pyramids & Sphinx lit up at night. We had dinner at the Mughal Room in the hotel which was probably the best Indian food I've ever had. We did the tasting course & each one was more scrumptious than the last. The mains, especially, were so good we wanted to keep eating even though we were totally full. Partly as a result of that plus all the sunshine earlier, we decided to take a disco nap before the belly dancing show at the hotel's nightclub later. LP said Cairo was the birthplace of belly dancing & had the best dancers in the world so I was extremely excited. I was so sleepy though, when SE woke me up at 2am I couldn't be bothered. The next morning we had a tour bright & early with Sharif of Abercrombie & Kent Tours. We grabbed some delicious (& amazingly cheap at E£3 = $0.55 for 4 sandwiches) falafel from Felfela & visited the Pyramids. We went to the 3 big ones by us, Khufu, Khafre & Menkaure.
They look a bit like step pyramids now because their limestone coverings & some of the inner limestone was taken to build other things, but they're still massive. Each block is about 1 meter x 3m & although Sharif explained how they were put together, it's mind-boggling. The current consensus is internal & external ramps winding around & around the pyramid & then disassembled. Contrary to what I'd read as a child, the workers weren't slaves, they were farmers keeping busy during the fallow season, given the very high honor of building Pharaoh's tomb. I guess if you want to call it that. We climbed inside the Great Pyramid & the most amazing thing was how smooth the walls were. I can't even get my head around the amount of labor it must have taken. When we'd had our fill of giant rock monuments, Sharif took us to a Papyrus store which was quite interesting & its curio shop which was not. Stuff in Egypt can look so tacky.
We stopped for lunch at Abou Tarek, which specialized in kushari, a noodle-type dish with spices which is pretty good. Then it was time for the Egyptian Museum. Sharif was in his element - he was a fount of information on the highlights of the Museum, as we obviously couldn't see every single thing in 2 hours. A bit overwhelming, actually - 2 hours of relentless lectures & not much walking around makes my eyes droop. My favorite exhibit was the diorite statue. Sharif said diorite is the second hardest material in the world, behind only diamond. & yet the ancient Egyptians carved 23 statues out of it. The weird thing is, we can't figure out how they did it. Apparently the only way they've been able to make a dent in diorite nowadays is with lasers, & they can't manage that level of detail either (nostrils, eyelids, etc.). Very mysterious. (A quick Google search revealed that Sharif was perhaps more patriotic than knowledgeable, as diorite is only a 6/10 on the Moh hardness scale & it is certainly not only lasers that can carve it.) It was also interesting to learn that silver was actually much more valuable in ancient Egypt because it had to be imported, whereas gold was so plentiful they buried their pharaohs with tons of it. Even a weak, short-lived king like Tutankhamen had a several gilded sarcophagi & a treasury's worth of gold. Maybe that's why their jewelry now is surprisingly expensive - they locked most of it away with dead people. My favorite part was the small pond outside the building with reeds & lilies which represented the papyrus & lotus of the kingdoms of Upper & Lower Egypt.
For dinner we went to Bird Cage at the Semiramis InterContinental, touted as the best Thai in Cairo. I don't know if that's true but it was certainly the best Thai I've ever had. We tried the chicken satay, crab & corn soup & crispy shrimp appetizers - then chicken cashew & spicy beef something after that, which were all fantastic. I could eat there every night. There was a belly dancer coming on later that night in the same hotel so we went across the street to El Mojito at the Nile Hilton to wait for her. However, we'd eaten too early - 8pm - & after 2 hours we were too bored to wait until 1 am for the show. We went home & I think we just played Scrabble.
On Friday we were really lazy, got up late & ended up sitting by the pool again. We tried Abu Sid, highly recommended by LP, & were extremely disappointed. It is not sumptuous or fit for a pasha & the food was ok but certainly nothing special, while the service was glacial & mixed up. I've had better meals at Le Souk in NYC. As it was our last night in Cairo, I was absolutely hell-bent on seeing a dancer before we left. SE was tired & tried to beg off but I convinced him by arguing that we'd probably never come back to Cairo & thus would miss out forever, & also I needed protection from the men. Fortunately for us lazy bums, the hotel night club was having a performance so all we had to to do was stay awake. When we got down there the audience totaled 12 people - including us. The singer soon finished & musicians began pouring out. it was like the circus act with the clowns popping out of a VW. We counted 19 people on stage! At long last the dancer herself came out. She was terrible. She had some basic moves, the requisite smile & was even pretty cute, but there was no rhythm or passion. Maybe she was a novice, I don't know. I was so disappointed I cried a little on our way back to the room. To his credit, SE comforted me instead of saying told you so.
Saturday we realized that we had forgotten to go shopping. We decided on the Khan Al Khalili bazaar as suggested by LP but when we told the cabbie where we wanted to go, he told us it was at least an hour there, plus Cairo traffic is horrible so probably it would be longer. We only had 2.5 hours total before we had to be at the airport so we were happy to take his suggestion of shopping near the hotel. I got some sheets, since people are always talking about Egyptian cotton, & we bought some cute clothes & jewelry. We managed to cross the street without getting run over - you think jaywalking is bad in NYC, you'd be horrified at Cairo. People basically walk whenever & wherever they feel like it, & there are hardly any stoplights. In any case we got what we wanted, although we didn't have time to get proper shawarma before our flight as I'd hoped. Our cabbie took it upon himself to stop & get us some, & wouldn't let us give him money. SE only had E£100 ($18.18) bills & said so when the driver stopped to get us drinks, but again he insisted it was his hospitality & that he had change for the fare of E£50, no worries. When we arrived SE gave him the E£100 & the guy just said thanks & started walking away. SE was like, No, I need change, you said you had it. It turned out he only had E£12 so we had to take that. This was one of the more egregious examples of how annoying baksheesh (tipping) is in Egypt. He clearly wanted us to tip him a lot, which is reasonable, but it sucks when people try to manipulate you into it. We might have just given him the extra 50 if it weren't for the fake "hospitality" & the bullshit about change. Don't call it hospitality when you have an agenda. We were also frustrated by how hard it was to get change. Whenever we wanted to break a bill they always asked if we had smaller, & on the frequent occasions when we didn't they were quite happy to pocket the excess unless SE got annoyed & walked away. LP said baksheesh is the custom for any kind of service but we got really tired of feeling fleeced all the time. In any case, we made it through both security gates (I suppose just in case we'd created a weapon in the 100 feet between the 1st X-ray/metal detector & the 2nd) & onto our flight to Sharm safely.
I don't understand how Arab women can stand being so hot in those burqas. It was about 95° & I couldn't bear wearing much more than a bikini! (Although I did, of course, I'm not stupid.) I find it odd that a religion mandating so much black clothing popped up in the desert of all places, instead of Scandinavia or something. I guess it's because people wanted to wear so little that men had to be "protected" from temptation. Learn some self-control, boys, jeez. According to the Lonely Planet guide (LP), it is wise for a woman traveler to just say her male companion is her husband, because they respect married women much more. Since a good Muslim girl has to be a virgin for her wedding night, foreign women are their chance for easy pussy. LP also said to keep as much of myself covered as possible. SE wasn't quite ready for a Mrs. SE but my safety won out. He'd made fun of me all through South Africa for packing so many long-sleeved shirts & pants & I was finally vindicated when man after man stopped & turned to stare at me regardless. One guy even tripped in the street while walking backwards, staring. To be fair, I think part of it may have been that they never see any young attractive Asian women, only old Japanese & Chinese tourists, but it was still disconcerting & made me nervous. It was much funnier when hawkers jokingly tried to buy me from SE for outrageous numbers of camels - the highest offer he got was 100 million. Each one is worth ~$1000 so it's lucky the 7-year-old kid didn't seem to actually have any camels or I'd be trapped in some harem right now.
That first night we went to the Sound & Light Show "narrated" by the Sphinx. It's super cheesy & pompous, although it's cool to see the Pyramids & Sphinx lit up at night. We had dinner at the Mughal Room in the hotel which was probably the best Indian food I've ever had. We did the tasting course & each one was more scrumptious than the last. The mains, especially, were so good we wanted to keep eating even though we were totally full. Partly as a result of that plus all the sunshine earlier, we decided to take a disco nap before the belly dancing show at the hotel's nightclub later. LP said Cairo was the birthplace of belly dancing & had the best dancers in the world so I was extremely excited. I was so sleepy though, when SE woke me up at 2am I couldn't be bothered. The next morning we had a tour bright & early with Sharif of Abercrombie & Kent Tours. We grabbed some delicious (& amazingly cheap at E£3 = $0.55 for 4 sandwiches) falafel from Felfela & visited the Pyramids. We went to the 3 big ones by us, Khufu, Khafre & Menkaure.
They look a bit like step pyramids now because their limestone coverings & some of the inner limestone was taken to build other things, but they're still massive. Each block is about 1 meter x 3m & although Sharif explained how they were put together, it's mind-boggling. The current consensus is internal & external ramps winding around & around the pyramid & then disassembled. Contrary to what I'd read as a child, the workers weren't slaves, they were farmers keeping busy during the fallow season, given the very high honor of building Pharaoh's tomb. I guess if you want to call it that. We climbed inside the Great Pyramid & the most amazing thing was how smooth the walls were. I can't even get my head around the amount of labor it must have taken. When we'd had our fill of giant rock monuments, Sharif took us to a Papyrus store which was quite interesting & its curio shop which was not. Stuff in Egypt can look so tacky.We stopped for lunch at Abou Tarek, which specialized in kushari, a noodle-type dish with spices which is pretty good. Then it was time for the Egyptian Museum. Sharif was in his element - he was a fount of information on the highlights of the Museum, as we obviously couldn't see every single thing in 2 hours. A bit overwhelming, actually - 2 hours of relentless lectures & not much walking around makes my eyes droop. My favorite exhibit was the diorite statue. Sharif said diorite is the second hardest material in the world, behind only diamond. & yet the ancient Egyptians carved 23 statues out of it. The weird thing is, we can't figure out how they did it. Apparently the only way they've been able to make a dent in diorite nowadays is with lasers, & they can't manage that level of detail either (nostrils, eyelids, etc.). Very mysterious. (A quick Google search revealed that Sharif was perhaps more patriotic than knowledgeable, as diorite is only a 6/10 on the Moh hardness scale & it is certainly not only lasers that can carve it.) It was also interesting to learn that silver was actually much more valuable in ancient Egypt because it had to be imported, whereas gold was so plentiful they buried their pharaohs with tons of it. Even a weak, short-lived king like Tutankhamen had a several gilded sarcophagi & a treasury's worth of gold. Maybe that's why their jewelry now is surprisingly expensive - they locked most of it away with dead people. My favorite part was the small pond outside the building with reeds & lilies which represented the papyrus & lotus of the kingdoms of Upper & Lower Egypt.
For dinner we went to Bird Cage at the Semiramis InterContinental, touted as the best Thai in Cairo. I don't know if that's true but it was certainly the best Thai I've ever had. We tried the chicken satay, crab & corn soup & crispy shrimp appetizers - then chicken cashew & spicy beef something after that, which were all fantastic. I could eat there every night. There was a belly dancer coming on later that night in the same hotel so we went across the street to El Mojito at the Nile Hilton to wait for her. However, we'd eaten too early - 8pm - & after 2 hours we were too bored to wait until 1 am for the show. We went home & I think we just played Scrabble.
On Friday we were really lazy, got up late & ended up sitting by the pool again. We tried Abu Sid, highly recommended by LP, & were extremely disappointed. It is not sumptuous or fit for a pasha & the food was ok but certainly nothing special, while the service was glacial & mixed up. I've had better meals at Le Souk in NYC. As it was our last night in Cairo, I was absolutely hell-bent on seeing a dancer before we left. SE was tired & tried to beg off but I convinced him by arguing that we'd probably never come back to Cairo & thus would miss out forever, & also I needed protection from the men. Fortunately for us lazy bums, the hotel night club was having a performance so all we had to to do was stay awake. When we got down there the audience totaled 12 people - including us. The singer soon finished & musicians began pouring out. it was like the circus act with the clowns popping out of a VW. We counted 19 people on stage! At long last the dancer herself came out. She was terrible. She had some basic moves, the requisite smile & was even pretty cute, but there was no rhythm or passion. Maybe she was a novice, I don't know. I was so disappointed I cried a little on our way back to the room. To his credit, SE comforted me instead of saying told you so.
Saturday we realized that we had forgotten to go shopping. We decided on the Khan Al Khalili bazaar as suggested by LP but when we told the cabbie where we wanted to go, he told us it was at least an hour there, plus Cairo traffic is horrible so probably it would be longer. We only had 2.5 hours total before we had to be at the airport so we were happy to take his suggestion of shopping near the hotel. I got some sheets, since people are always talking about Egyptian cotton, & we bought some cute clothes & jewelry. We managed to cross the street without getting run over - you think jaywalking is bad in NYC, you'd be horrified at Cairo. People basically walk whenever & wherever they feel like it, & there are hardly any stoplights. In any case we got what we wanted, although we didn't have time to get proper shawarma before our flight as I'd hoped. Our cabbie took it upon himself to stop & get us some, & wouldn't let us give him money. SE only had E£100 ($18.18) bills & said so when the driver stopped to get us drinks, but again he insisted it was his hospitality & that he had change for the fare of E£50, no worries. When we arrived SE gave him the E£100 & the guy just said thanks & started walking away. SE was like, No, I need change, you said you had it. It turned out he only had E£12 so we had to take that. This was one of the more egregious examples of how annoying baksheesh (tipping) is in Egypt. He clearly wanted us to tip him a lot, which is reasonable, but it sucks when people try to manipulate you into it. We might have just given him the extra 50 if it weren't for the fake "hospitality" & the bullshit about change. Don't call it hospitality when you have an agenda. We were also frustrated by how hard it was to get change. Whenever we wanted to break a bill they always asked if we had smaller, & on the frequent occasions when we didn't they were quite happy to pocket the excess unless SE got annoyed & walked away. LP said baksheesh is the custom for any kind of service but we got really tired of feeling fleeced all the time. In any case, we made it through both security gates (I suppose just in case we'd created a weapon in the 100 feet between the 1st X-ray/metal detector & the 2nd) & onto our flight to Sharm safely.
Cape Town: 9.5/10
We flew Vic Falls to Jo'burg to Cape Town on Sunday. I'm not sure, but it seems that all flights in South Africa have to go through Jo'burg. Which is a pain, because it's a badly designed airport with horribly misleading signs. To get between terminals requires going through the parking garage. Even if they are on adjoining floors. The signs are useless; we frequently followed a sign one way only to get confused at the dead end & then catch sight of another saying to go back the way we came. This happened at least 3 times. Also, the South African Airways (SAA) people were particularly unhelpful. Every time we talked to them it looked like they were solving Mensa problems on their computers. They always needed help from their colleagues, too. The worst part was the look of absolute blank bewilderment we'd get in response to perfectly reasonable, comprehensible questions such as, "Can I put points on my Star Alliance [of which SAA is a member] card for this [SAA] flight?" They would say "Huh?!?!?!" as befuddledly as though SE had asked to recharge his banana in midair. This happened every time! & it wasn't because they didn't speak English - they do, very well. It was was almost as puzzling as frustrating.
Anyway, we managed to make it through to Cape Town. We'd heard lots of good things about it & it didn't disappoint. We stayed at the Extreme Hotel which is hands down the coolest hotel ever. It's affiliated with the Extreme Sports Channel, which they have playing all the time. The elevators & bathrooms are themed - for instance, one elevator is a shark-diving cage. Outside each room is a light that is red or blue to indicate "privacy" or not. The rooms themselves aren't very big but everything is fitted together in such a way that it doesn't seem small. The bed was huge & fluffy & there were UK & Australian charger plates right in the wall. There's a Bose clock radio in every room, free wireless internet, plus an outlet in the safe so you can charge laptops, phones etc. inside. Cabs waited outside & fares could be put on our room. The breakfast buffet was the best we had anywhere in Africa, the bar reminded us strongly of the Hudson Hotel in NYC, & all of this was for ~US$150 per night. Plus all the employees were super nice & helpful. We finally managed to stop swooning over every new awesome thing we noticed & go to dinner at Blues in Camps Bay, an upscale section of town. It wasn't as lively as we expected but we did arrive at 9 pm on an off-season Sunday. We got the recommended seafood-for-2 platter & it was so good. I've never liked non-fried calamari because I find it rubbery but this was amazingly tender in scrumptious sauce. We had some tiger & queen prawns, which would be called shrimp in America, as well as fish, lobster & crayfish. They should do seafood towers like that in the States. I don't much like oysters or mussels & they always put so many in a tower, it rarely makes sense for me to order one. & stuff from the raw bar is good but it's so nice to have it hot & flavored as well. Dipping things in sauce just isn't the same. Afterwards, we were too tired from struggling with airlines all day to enjoy the nightlife so we went to bed.
The next day, after careful consideration, we hired a driver to show us around Cape Town. We rode the cable car up Table Mountain, which is gorgeous. The Cape area is its own unique floral region, fynbos, because of the cold Benguela & warm Agulhas currents that collide there. The Indian & Atlantic Oceans also meet at Cape Point. There are about 6000 plants & some animals in the area that are found nowhere else in the world. The African penguins at Boulder Park are not as cute as the emperors down in Antarctica but they are still adorable.
It's bizarre to see them without a backdrop of snow or glaciers. We also went to the Cape of Good Hope & Cape Point Lighthouse. On our way back to the hotel we met some overfriendly baboons. One of them tried to open the doors of the car parked in front of us!
Our guide said they've even been known to break into houses looking for food. After our extensive day of sightseeing we checked out Long Street, which is a pretty hip & young crowd. We decided on Mama Africa where we tried ostrich, crocodile, kudu & springbok (we got the mixed grill, we're not piggies) for the first time & actually liked them very much. I think that may have had more to do with the excellence of the chef than the taste of the meat, though, since we'd tried some springbok biltong (jerky) in Kruger & hated it. Crocodile & ostrich taste like stronger-flavored chicken, while kudu & springbok remind me of beef. I also had a crazy drink called the Wagon Wheel or something. It was tequila & Tia Maria with a shot of Bailey's & some other creamy liqueur dumped in at the end. Kind of like a really alcoholic Irish car bomb, plus it was on fire. I was quite tipsy afterwards as you can imagine. We just went home though, because we had to get up early for shark diving!
Cape Town is known for its dive tours with great white sharks. We went on Great White Ecoventures with maybe 15 other people. They took us out to a boat from Gansbaai. I was nauseous half the time & the wetsuits were cold & clammy but it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. You just put on a goggle mask & get in the cage with a few other people & go underwater when the spotter yells out. The sharks swim right by & try to eat the bait, it's mind-blowing.
We saw about 8 separate sharks continuously for 2 hours which was very lucky, according to our captain, since it's quite common not to see any at all or just for 5 minutes. SE & I watched them until we were too cold. We should have stayed in a little longer though, because the biggest shark actually bit the cage! That was a fantastic end to our day. We rushed back to the hotel to get our bags & stressed out extremely trying to get to our flight on time. I thought superstitiously that we'd been so lucky all day that we couldn't miss it & I was right this time. We had to fly through Jo'burg again (5th time in a week!) & then took the overnight to Cairo.
Anyway, we managed to make it through to Cape Town. We'd heard lots of good things about it & it didn't disappoint. We stayed at the Extreme Hotel which is hands down the coolest hotel ever. It's affiliated with the Extreme Sports Channel, which they have playing all the time. The elevators & bathrooms are themed - for instance, one elevator is a shark-diving cage. Outside each room is a light that is red or blue to indicate "privacy" or not. The rooms themselves aren't very big but everything is fitted together in such a way that it doesn't seem small. The bed was huge & fluffy & there were UK & Australian charger plates right in the wall. There's a Bose clock radio in every room, free wireless internet, plus an outlet in the safe so you can charge laptops, phones etc. inside. Cabs waited outside & fares could be put on our room. The breakfast buffet was the best we had anywhere in Africa, the bar reminded us strongly of the Hudson Hotel in NYC, & all of this was for ~US$150 per night. Plus all the employees were super nice & helpful. We finally managed to stop swooning over every new awesome thing we noticed & go to dinner at Blues in Camps Bay, an upscale section of town. It wasn't as lively as we expected but we did arrive at 9 pm on an off-season Sunday. We got the recommended seafood-for-2 platter & it was so good. I've never liked non-fried calamari because I find it rubbery but this was amazingly tender in scrumptious sauce. We had some tiger & queen prawns, which would be called shrimp in America, as well as fish, lobster & crayfish. They should do seafood towers like that in the States. I don't much like oysters or mussels & they always put so many in a tower, it rarely makes sense for me to order one. & stuff from the raw bar is good but it's so nice to have it hot & flavored as well. Dipping things in sauce just isn't the same. Afterwards, we were too tired from struggling with airlines all day to enjoy the nightlife so we went to bed.
The next day, after careful consideration, we hired a driver to show us around Cape Town. We rode the cable car up Table Mountain, which is gorgeous. The Cape area is its own unique floral region, fynbos, because of the cold Benguela & warm Agulhas currents that collide there. The Indian & Atlantic Oceans also meet at Cape Point. There are about 6000 plants & some animals in the area that are found nowhere else in the world. The African penguins at Boulder Park are not as cute as the emperors down in Antarctica but they are still adorable.
It's bizarre to see them without a backdrop of snow or glaciers. We also went to the Cape of Good Hope & Cape Point Lighthouse. On our way back to the hotel we met some overfriendly baboons. One of them tried to open the doors of the car parked in front of us!
Our guide said they've even been known to break into houses looking for food. After our extensive day of sightseeing we checked out Long Street, which is a pretty hip & young crowd. We decided on Mama Africa where we tried ostrich, crocodile, kudu & springbok (we got the mixed grill, we're not piggies) for the first time & actually liked them very much. I think that may have had more to do with the excellence of the chef than the taste of the meat, though, since we'd tried some springbok biltong (jerky) in Kruger & hated it. Crocodile & ostrich taste like stronger-flavored chicken, while kudu & springbok remind me of beef. I also had a crazy drink called the Wagon Wheel or something. It was tequila & Tia Maria with a shot of Bailey's & some other creamy liqueur dumped in at the end. Kind of like a really alcoholic Irish car bomb, plus it was on fire. I was quite tipsy afterwards as you can imagine. We just went home though, because we had to get up early for shark diving!Cape Town is known for its dive tours with great white sharks. We went on Great White Ecoventures with maybe 15 other people. They took us out to a boat from Gansbaai. I was nauseous half the time & the wetsuits were cold & clammy but it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. You just put on a goggle mask & get in the cage with a few other people & go underwater when the spotter yells out. The sharks swim right by & try to eat the bait, it's mind-blowing.
We saw about 8 separate sharks continuously for 2 hours which was very lucky, according to our captain, since it's quite common not to see any at all or just for 5 minutes. SE & I watched them until we were too cold. We should have stayed in a little longer though, because the biggest shark actually bit the cage! That was a fantastic end to our day. We rushed back to the hotel to get our bags & stressed out extremely trying to get to our flight on time. I thought superstitiously that we'd been so lucky all day that we couldn't miss it & I was right this time. We had to fly through Jo'burg again (5th time in a week!) & then took the overnight to Cairo.
Victoria Falls: 7/10
We flew Jo'burg to Victoria Falls on Friday morning, 7/13. Zimbabwe kind of looks like upstate New York with less trees & more monkeys. Sexy Englishman had us at the Hotel Mercure Rainbow, which turned out to be not bad. We wanted to do activities right away, but the earliest thing we could do was a sunset cruise on the Zambezi so we spent a couple hours relaxing & drinking by the pool. The boat ride turned out to be a booze cruise with hippos, crocodiles & elephants. Apparently elephants swim from the mainland to the little islands in the river quite often to forage. SE & I made friends with some English backpackers on the boat, who invited us to a bar later (as if we weren't drunk enough already). Fortunately we had electricity when we got back to the hotel - it had been turned off before. We decided, probably unwisely, to eat dinner at the bar, which of course we forgot to do. Upon venturing out into the town we promptly got lost despite being told directions. We wandered up & down the main street several times until we decided that a pitch-black road was where we should be; happily, my misgivings were proved wrong when we got to Shoestrings. It's an expat bar at a backpacker's hostel, filled with aid workers, student travelers & assorted other (mostly white) people. Lots of fun. We found some Americans there, pretty much the first we'd met in Africa, & over-indulged in $1 beer & $2 vodka tonics. They love US money in Zimbabwe. Sadly, their Zim dollars are pretty much toilet paper. We got Z$100,000 for US$1 on the street, & according to an Economist published while we there we could have got Z$250,000. The worst part of the hyper-inflation for the citizens is that President Mugabe insists on holding the exchange rate at Z$250:US$1. There's now a "farmer relief" accelerator of 60, so it's 15,000:1 but that's still completely divorced from reality. The funniest thing about the money is that it has a sell-by date. I have a Z$100,000 bill in my wallet that is no longer legal tender, as it expired on 7/31. Good job Mugabe, we all totally believe you're not running your poor starving country into the ground.
The next morning we had a helicopter ride & bungee jump scheduled. Poor SE was much the worse for wear, while I was perky & awake at a ridiculously early hour. (I don't get hangovers.) He managed to make it through the flight without throwing up, fortunately. The Falls are gorgeous. They're the biggest system in the world. Their very appropriate Makololo name is Mosi-oa-Tunya, the Smoke that Thunders. It's amazing how deep & winding a gorge the Zambezi has made for itself. The falls come off a flat plain & that's it, the land looks like a
giant was trying to carve something out. An interlocked series of Zs maybe.
After we got back from that I put SE to bed with some tlc. He's never sick, I'm always the one who needs looking after, so it was really nice to be able to take care of him for once. When he woke up he felt much better & was excited, instead of apprehensive, about the bungee. Well, less apprehensive. I was jumping up & down with anticipation. When we got to the Vic Falls Bridge between Zimbabwe & Zambia it turned out that we could do 2 other activities as well, a gorge swing & slide. Of course little miss Adrenaline Junkie wanted to do everything, so we got all suited up & strapped in - they are reassuringly safety-conscious there - & stepped off the bridge into 4 seconds of free-falling terror. Basically there's a rope running across the gorge with another rope looped around it - we were on the 2nd rope. Once you fall enough there's no more slack & you start swinging off the 1st rope. That's the fun part. The falling is actually quite horrible, especially since we literally stepped off the bridge & fell feet first for what seemed like days. It was so fast we couldn't even scream. After it was over & we weren't dead we felt exhilarated though. The slide was a bit lame, great view of the gorge, & then it was bungee time. Now I was scared & SE was excited. I had a vivid recollection of my stomach being around my ears from 10 minutes before & almost wasn't sure I wanted to do that again. Bungee is better, though, because you "fly" off the platform & can see where you're going instead of falling. It was amazing.
We had a calm, sober night at the hotel. Their lapa was quite good & so was the Ndebele dancing, not that I know much about it. They have some scary-ass costumes.
We played Scrabble later - my 2nd time ever - & I managed to beat SE. He's very good at it so I was well pleased with myself. We went to bed early so we could go to the actual Falls early before our flight on Sunday, since we hadn't actually seen them up close. They were really wet, even though it was the dry season, & quite overwhelming in their sheer volume. I got my fill of rainbows & we got photographic proof that someone has taken the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Or maybe that's just in Zimbabwe - someone has clearly taken their electricity & water as well. We were told it was "rationing" to help the farmers but we had our doubts.
The next morning we had a helicopter ride & bungee jump scheduled. Poor SE was much the worse for wear, while I was perky & awake at a ridiculously early hour. (I don't get hangovers.) He managed to make it through the flight without throwing up, fortunately. The Falls are gorgeous. They're the biggest system in the world. Their very appropriate Makololo name is Mosi-oa-Tunya, the Smoke that Thunders. It's amazing how deep & winding a gorge the Zambezi has made for itself. The falls come off a flat plain & that's it, the land looks like a
giant was trying to carve something out. An interlocked series of Zs maybe.
After we got back from that I put SE to bed with some tlc. He's never sick, I'm always the one who needs looking after, so it was really nice to be able to take care of him for once. When he woke up he felt much better & was excited, instead of apprehensive, about the bungee. Well, less apprehensive. I was jumping up & down with anticipation. When we got to the Vic Falls Bridge between Zimbabwe & Zambia it turned out that we could do 2 other activities as well, a gorge swing & slide. Of course little miss Adrenaline Junkie wanted to do everything, so we got all suited up & strapped in - they are reassuringly safety-conscious there - & stepped off the bridge into 4 seconds of free-falling terror. Basically there's a rope running across the gorge with another rope looped around it - we were on the 2nd rope. Once you fall enough there's no more slack & you start swinging off the 1st rope. That's the fun part. The falling is actually quite horrible, especially since we literally stepped off the bridge & fell feet first for what seemed like days. It was so fast we couldn't even scream. After it was over & we weren't dead we felt exhilarated though. The slide was a bit lame, great view of the gorge, & then it was bungee time. Now I was scared & SE was excited. I had a vivid recollection of my stomach being around my ears from 10 minutes before & almost wasn't sure I wanted to do that again. Bungee is better, though, because you "fly" off the platform & can see where you're going instead of falling. It was amazing.
We had a calm, sober night at the hotel. Their lapa was quite good & so was the Ndebele dancing, not that I know much about it. They have some scary-ass costumes.
We played Scrabble later - my 2nd time ever - & I managed to beat SE. He's very good at it so I was well pleased with myself. We went to bed early so we could go to the actual Falls early before our flight on Sunday, since we hadn't actually seen them up close. They were really wet, even though it was the dry season, & quite overwhelming in their sheer volume. I got my fill of rainbows & we got photographic proof that someone has taken the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Or maybe that's just in Zimbabwe - someone has clearly taken their electricity & water as well. We were told it was "rationing" to help the farmers but we had our doubts.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Northeastern South Africa: 8/10
So we got back from Vegas early Saturday morning. We had about 6 hours to pack for the next 4 weeks, although I'd got most of my things together already, & also we had to make sure everything was taken care of for the rest of the month. I managed to stick to my schedule fairly well, despite my extreme tendency to procrastinate when faced with such a large block of time. I arrived at SE's with suitcases in tow early enough to run out & get Travel Scrabble. Yes, we are big dorks who do crosswords, play Scrabble & read the Economist. We got to JFK & through security without mishap & just had to wait a lot. It's 17 hours from New York to Johannesburg - they stop for an hour's refueling in Senegal - which is a hell of a long time. I tried to sleep a lot & power through back issues of the Economist. I've calculated that each issue is roughly the equivalent of a 200 page book, which makes me feel better that I always get behind on it. It comes out every week! I was distracted, however, by lots of naps, Tetris at my seat, & Lady Chatterley's Lover. I can't remember why I thought that book was good the first time I read it. It's not terribly well written, plus Lawrence says some really offensive things about women. I should have remembered that I thought Women in Love was crap too.
We got to Jo'burg after nightfall. People had warned us that it's a very dangerous city & on no account should you stop at traffic lights when it's dark because you might get mugged or carjacked. We rented a car, & let me tell you, Jo'burg is not a good place to get lost at night. They have hardly any street signs, unless we just couldn't see them, & you do have to stop at some lights because other people are going. Usually we only stopped at the ones where there were other cars around though. We were trying to get on a highway & couldn't find the on-ramp! We could see the road above our heads but kept getting lost in dodgier & dodgier areas until we were passing people huddled around small bonfires in tires. At that point I was trying to figure out how to read the map without holding it up or turning on the light so as not to look like tourists & therefore targets. SE's navigational skills prevailed in the end, & we got safely to Thulangi Lodge in Melville, an area of Jo'burg. They were very friendly & our room had a canopied bed! I've wanted one of those since I was a little girl. We had dinner at The Loft, which was great. We just picked it because it looked the nicest & it turned out to be fantastic. The dessert called something like "Mom's homemade" is a must. They have very inventive cocktails as well.
We played Scrabble when we got back to the room & tried to stay warm. South Africa has quite a pleasant winter - it's up to maybe 70˚ during the day - but it gets really cold at night. The bathroom was so frozen by morning that we were like, "Forget it, we'll shower when we get to the next place." We needed some supplies so we stopped by Sandton Mall which was supposed to be quite nice & was. It took about 4 hours to get to Kruger National Park. The N4 highway is reallly nice, better than roads in America. It's very smooth, hardly any cracks, & just seems to unspool for mile after mile. We noticed that South Africans love to tailgate though. (The driving-too-close kind, not beer & hamburgers.) No wonder they have such a horrible accident percentage. The speed limit was usually about 120 kmph (~70mph) & the other drivers were definitely not leaving enough distance to brake without causing a pileup. There were very few cars on the road though, which may have had something to do with the tolls or it being a weekday.
Around evening we finally got to Kruger Park Lodge, after some confusion over whether Skukuza Road was actually the Paul Kruger Gate Road we were looking for. The Lodge is a large complex of chalets including a hippo & crocodile area, its own golf course & a herd of impala. Since it was the off-season we were lucky enough to get a 3-bedroom chalet to ourselves. It was quite overwhelming. We should have brought some friends.
The next morning we arranged evening & day safaris. We had some time before the trip that night & wandered around the very scenic Lodge & into the surrounding town of Hazyview. We also tried to play golf but I didn't have a collared shirt so they wouldn't let me. Finally it was time for our first safari. A guy drove us to the Lion Sands private game reserve right next to Kruger & we were off in a very big Jeep. We had a guide, Andrew, & a spotter, Kruger (yes, I'm sure that's why). It was just me, SE & 2 trainee guides in a Jeep that could comfortably hold 12, so it was great. I pestered Andrew with tons of questions as we looked for animals. We spied a duiker briefly, which is a type of antelope. Then we saw an elephant in the distance. SE & I started snapping pix, amazed at our good fortune since in winter it's not always easy to find the animals. We thought that was cool - Andrew said, "Let's get a closer look!" & vroom drove right into the bush! As we smushed small trees & acacia bushes he explained that the latter have been known to rip holes in tires but elephants chomp happily away on them without any apparent discomfort. We pulled up maybe 30 feet from the elephant, a young bull. It didn't seem bothered at all by our presence, & in fact ate its way closer to us, so close that I really wanted to touch it.
Interestingly, though the animals can see us, the Jeep just looks like a unit to them & they don't really differentiate the people from the vehicle. If you stretch an arm out or stand up, though, they do, & will either run away or charge so everyone has to stay seated at all times.
Some more bush driving later, we saw a mother & baby giraffe, which were just as cute as in cartoons. Next was one of the highlights of our whole trip. We saw a leopard! They are nocturnal & elusive so seeing one up close during daylight is really rare. They are so beautiful. We followed this one around for a while - it was a male that had fed very recently - as it padded lazily along for a bit & then decided on a good lick & nap in a likely patch of tall grass.
Unbelievable. We quickly stopped getting excited about impala, which were as ubiquitous as deer in the US though much lovelier & more graceful. Their legs are so slender they look as though they should break on impact & they have intelligent little faces with very high cheekbones. We also checked off kudu & bushbuck, which are like bigger-boned, wider-eared impala. Andrew pointed out a funny bird that people call the "vomit comet" because that's what it looks like. I guess maybe if you eat blueberries.
As evening fell, we found a skittish rhino family. We tried to get closer but Mommy & Baby wheeled & ran. In the distance we also saw a zebra herd, which was surprising because the South African winter is too cold for them & they should have been up north already. They were even more skittish than the rhinos. Our last big sighting - so 4 of the Big 5* - was 2 males & 1 wounded female lion. The poor thing was limping along on 3 feet, quite gracefully considering. It was pretty much dark & cold at this point, though we managed to spot a bushbaby (tiny weird squirrel-looking thing) & a mongoose. We had dinner at the lapa at the Kruger Gate Protea Hotel which was good. A lapa is a big barbecue-type setup with cold, stew & dessert buffet sections too. SE & I got home tired & happy.
*Leopard, lion, rhino, elephant, & buffalo. These were chosen because they were the most dangerous animals in the area to hunt.
The next morning a guide picked us up at 5:45 for our safari in Kruger proper. Winter is no joke there - we were frozen until about noon. I had on a sweater, down jacket & blanket & still couldn't stop shivering. This is where we learned the difference between private game reserves & Kruger. There's no offroading on government property & everyone with a car is welcome to drive through looking for animals. There are a lot more regular cars without guides, which means that they sometimes do silly things or get in the way. We got lucky with a rhino fairly soon & saw some more giraffes & elephants before seeing #5, the buffalo. They are not very interesting to watch, although our guide told us that they are fierce fighters. Apparently a buffalo kept 8 lions at bay once, by goring them & staying in front of a big tree. We didn't see any aggression though. They seemed to be chewing their cud, carrying their enormous balls, & letting little birds eat their ticks off. Later we saw a group of male impala fighting. They make funny grunting noises & actually lock horns. We saw some vervets, which are small adorable monkeys, & also baboons with their babies. When female baboons are in estrus they get the most unattractive-looking red butts.
We even 
saw warthogs, which are very hairy & nowhere near as cute as The Lion King would lead one to expect. & speaking of lions, we saw a whole family! Mommy & 2 cubs were walking on the highway, which seems to be easier on their paws, & Daddy brought up the rear. Mom & babies quickly ran away from the procession of cars but Daddy padded along majestically. He was even closer to us than the elephant & leopard the day before - it was amazing. We caught sight of some hippos quite far away on the riverbank as well.
The next day it was time to say goodbye to our lovely chalet & head back to Jo'burg. We drove up to Blyde River Canyon & God's Window, which has a small rain forest at the top. I have no idea how that's possible, but I think it's natural. The drive back was pretty uneventful; we decided to stay at the airport InterContinental this time because we had an early flight to Victoria Falls & it just didn't make sense to test our luck in the city again. The hotel is wonderful & the room was such welcome luxury. It's really expensive though, so not for backpackers. We played in the pool which overlooks Jo'burg, then had dinner downstairs at Quills. So yummy. The service was a bit slow but the food more than made up for it. Plus, compared to the absolutely crap food at the Lodge it was like manna from heaven.
I was going to do this post on all of South Africa but decided that would be too long. I deducted points for being freezing cold & the mediocre Lodge food. It was amazing overall though, & I definitely recommend it for everyone who's got at least a week to look at animals & explore.
We got to Jo'burg after nightfall. People had warned us that it's a very dangerous city & on no account should you stop at traffic lights when it's dark because you might get mugged or carjacked. We rented a car, & let me tell you, Jo'burg is not a good place to get lost at night. They have hardly any street signs, unless we just couldn't see them, & you do have to stop at some lights because other people are going. Usually we only stopped at the ones where there were other cars around though. We were trying to get on a highway & couldn't find the on-ramp! We could see the road above our heads but kept getting lost in dodgier & dodgier areas until we were passing people huddled around small bonfires in tires. At that point I was trying to figure out how to read the map without holding it up or turning on the light so as not to look like tourists & therefore targets. SE's navigational skills prevailed in the end, & we got safely to Thulangi Lodge in Melville, an area of Jo'burg. They were very friendly & our room had a canopied bed! I've wanted one of those since I was a little girl. We had dinner at The Loft, which was great. We just picked it because it looked the nicest & it turned out to be fantastic. The dessert called something like "Mom's homemade" is a must. They have very inventive cocktails as well.
We played Scrabble when we got back to the room & tried to stay warm. South Africa has quite a pleasant winter - it's up to maybe 70˚ during the day - but it gets really cold at night. The bathroom was so frozen by morning that we were like, "Forget it, we'll shower when we get to the next place." We needed some supplies so we stopped by Sandton Mall which was supposed to be quite nice & was. It took about 4 hours to get to Kruger National Park. The N4 highway is reallly nice, better than roads in America. It's very smooth, hardly any cracks, & just seems to unspool for mile after mile. We noticed that South Africans love to tailgate though. (The driving-too-close kind, not beer & hamburgers.) No wonder they have such a horrible accident percentage. The speed limit was usually about 120 kmph (~70mph) & the other drivers were definitely not leaving enough distance to brake without causing a pileup. There were very few cars on the road though, which may have had something to do with the tolls or it being a weekday.
Around evening we finally got to Kruger Park Lodge, after some confusion over whether Skukuza Road was actually the Paul Kruger Gate Road we were looking for. The Lodge is a large complex of chalets including a hippo & crocodile area, its own golf course & a herd of impala. Since it was the off-season we were lucky enough to get a 3-bedroom chalet to ourselves. It was quite overwhelming. We should have brought some friends.
The next morning we arranged evening & day safaris. We had some time before the trip that night & wandered around the very scenic Lodge & into the surrounding town of Hazyview. We also tried to play golf but I didn't have a collared shirt so they wouldn't let me. Finally it was time for our first safari. A guy drove us to the Lion Sands private game reserve right next to Kruger & we were off in a very big Jeep. We had a guide, Andrew, & a spotter, Kruger (yes, I'm sure that's why). It was just me, SE & 2 trainee guides in a Jeep that could comfortably hold 12, so it was great. I pestered Andrew with tons of questions as we looked for animals. We spied a duiker briefly, which is a type of antelope. Then we saw an elephant in the distance. SE & I started snapping pix, amazed at our good fortune since in winter it's not always easy to find the animals. We thought that was cool - Andrew said, "Let's get a closer look!" & vroom drove right into the bush! As we smushed small trees & acacia bushes he explained that the latter have been known to rip holes in tires but elephants chomp happily away on them without any apparent discomfort. We pulled up maybe 30 feet from the elephant, a young bull. It didn't seem bothered at all by our presence, & in fact ate its way closer to us, so close that I really wanted to touch it.
Interestingly, though the animals can see us, the Jeep just looks like a unit to them & they don't really differentiate the people from the vehicle. If you stretch an arm out or stand up, though, they do, & will either run away or charge so everyone has to stay seated at all times.Some more bush driving later, we saw a mother & baby giraffe, which were just as cute as in cartoons. Next was one of the highlights of our whole trip. We saw a leopard! They are nocturnal & elusive so seeing one up close during daylight is really rare. They are so beautiful. We followed this one around for a while - it was a male that had fed very recently - as it padded lazily along for a bit & then decided on a good lick & nap in a likely patch of tall grass.
Unbelievable. We quickly stopped getting excited about impala, which were as ubiquitous as deer in the US though much lovelier & more graceful. Their legs are so slender they look as though they should break on impact & they have intelligent little faces with very high cheekbones. We also checked off kudu & bushbuck, which are like bigger-boned, wider-eared impala. Andrew pointed out a funny bird that people call the "vomit comet" because that's what it looks like. I guess maybe if you eat blueberries.
As evening fell, we found a skittish rhino family. We tried to get closer but Mommy & Baby wheeled & ran. In the distance we also saw a zebra herd, which was surprising because the South African winter is too cold for them & they should have been up north already. They were even more skittish than the rhinos. Our last big sighting - so 4 of the Big 5* - was 2 males & 1 wounded female lion. The poor thing was limping along on 3 feet, quite gracefully considering. It was pretty much dark & cold at this point, though we managed to spot a bushbaby (tiny weird squirrel-looking thing) & a mongoose. We had dinner at the lapa at the Kruger Gate Protea Hotel which was good. A lapa is a big barbecue-type setup with cold, stew & dessert buffet sections too. SE & I got home tired & happy.*Leopard, lion, rhino, elephant, & buffalo. These were chosen because they were the most dangerous animals in the area to hunt.
The next morning a guide picked us up at 5:45 for our safari in Kruger proper. Winter is no joke there - we were frozen until about noon. I had on a sweater, down jacket & blanket & still couldn't stop shivering. This is where we learned the difference between private game reserves & Kruger. There's no offroading on government property & everyone with a car is welcome to drive through looking for animals. There are a lot more regular cars without guides, which means that they sometimes do silly things or get in the way. We got lucky with a rhino fairly soon & saw some more giraffes & elephants before seeing #5, the buffalo. They are not very interesting to watch, although our guide told us that they are fierce fighters. Apparently a buffalo kept 8 lions at bay once, by goring them & staying in front of a big tree. We didn't see any aggression though. They seemed to be chewing their cud, carrying their enormous balls, & letting little birds eat their ticks off. Later we saw a group of male impala fighting. They make funny grunting noises & actually lock horns. We saw some vervets, which are small adorable monkeys, & also baboons with their babies. When female baboons are in estrus they get the most unattractive-looking red butts.
We even 
saw warthogs, which are very hairy & nowhere near as cute as The Lion King would lead one to expect. & speaking of lions, we saw a whole family! Mommy & 2 cubs were walking on the highway, which seems to be easier on their paws, & Daddy brought up the rear. Mom & babies quickly ran away from the procession of cars but Daddy padded along majestically. He was even closer to us than the elephant & leopard the day before - it was amazing. We caught sight of some hippos quite far away on the riverbank as well.The next day it was time to say goodbye to our lovely chalet & head back to Jo'burg. We drove up to Blyde River Canyon & God's Window, which has a small rain forest at the top. I have no idea how that's possible, but I think it's natural. The drive back was pretty uneventful; we decided to stay at the airport InterContinental this time because we had an early flight to Victoria Falls & it just didn't make sense to test our luck in the city again. The hotel is wonderful & the room was such welcome luxury. It's really expensive though, so not for backpackers. We played in the pool which overlooks Jo'burg, then had dinner downstairs at Quills. So yummy. The service was a bit slow but the food more than made up for it. Plus, compared to the absolutely crap food at the Lodge it was like manna from heaven.
I was going to do this post on all of South Africa but decided that would be too long. I deducted points for being freezing cold & the mediocre Lodge food. It was amazing overall though, & I definitely recommend it for everyone who's got at least a week to look at animals & explore.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
work
I am back working for Giant Multinational Co. this month & they've taken away all our internet access. We used to be able to get gmail & most sites. I was really looking forward to catching up on email & posts but now I have to do that when I'm not working or with Sexy Englishman, which is not very much time at all. Bastards. So the Africa posts will be a bit delayed.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Las Vegas: 10/10
Sexy Englishman & I are finally back from our world tour. It's been a month exactly - towards the end I really missed New York. We started off in Vegas for 3 days from July 4. This time was so much more fun than my January trip with Nice Lawyer. We stayed at the Wynn, which according to SE (this was his 6th time) is the best hotel on the Strip. It was definitely my favorite as well. The decor is a bit Art Deco/whimsical Arabian fantasy, which I liked, & the staff are unfailingly attentive. Even if we asked the wrong person a question they seemed happy to steer us in the right direction. I loved our giant king-size bed & very comfy sheets. Oddly, the bathroom was the twin of the one at the Four Seasons. I can't imagine why that would be.
The tables are my favorite as well - last time we gambled at several different hotels & the Wynn was the best, & I wasn't disappointed this time. The dealers (we played blackjack) are very cheerful, like they're actually having fun as well. We were up & down during the 3 days, at worst down $2000 & at best up about $500 but ended up more or less even. Not too shabby. It got us one night comped as well.
This time I had the pleasure of discovering how great food is in Vegas. We went to Picasso at the Bellagio, which was amazing. Every course of the larger tasting menu except the main was absolutely heaven. Our mains were quite good, just not up to the standard of the rest. & the dessert! SE enjoyed his molten chocolate cake so much he told me he had a new love in his life. It's a pricey place but worth it. Plus you get to watch the fountain show every 15 minutes or so, although I wouldn't advise going outside during the sumer heat. It was over 100°F while we were there, & even though it's not humid, walking farther than the pool is really unadvisable.
We played blackjack the rest of the night, with a break in the middle for a little pick-me-up. On the one hand I feel bad for the waitresses having to wear those incredibly skimpy outfits, but also I really enjoy watching them. It's too bad Lovely Blonde couldn't come with us as originally planned, she would have loved it. We managed to get up around noon the next day & did touristy stuff like the Shark Reef (smaller than I thought it'd be, but pretty cool) & the Insanity ride at Stratosphere. That was an interesting view but it was too hot out & I got a bit nauseous. We escaped back to the wonderful air conditioning at the Wynn for dinner at SW Steakhouse. We had a great waiter, & the food was very good, but not quite as transcendental as Picasso. Their house steak sauce isn't good, which I noticed at Cut - Wolfgang Puck's place in LA - as well. I wonder why that is. You'd think they would do that the best. More gambling after dinner, neither of us having much luck. We kind of considered going to Crazy Horse but decided that it would probably just be a more expensive version of Penthouse, & it's not as fun with only 2 people.
Our last day we went to a shooting gallery. A friend suggested one, though couldn't remember the name or address except the general location but we tracked it down. American Shooter's Gun Club, 3440 S. Arville, is a no-frills shop & shooting area with a very comprehensive range of weapons. They even had Sten guns from World War II! One thing they don't really show on TV is how ridiculously loud guns are. Even ear muffs don't help much. SE thought I was a bit too excited about the guns but indulged me... we started with a .22 which we both learned to aim reasonably well & then progressed to a .357 Magnum. There really is no civilian situation where one would need a gun that powerful. It jumps a foot when fired, which makes precise aiming fairly useless, & it rips enormous holes in things. The paper target presented very little obstacle - as bloodthirsty as I am, I shudder to imagine what it would do to a body. It was fun at first & then the noise, recoil & powder burns kind of got to me. I'm really glad I got to try shooting for the first time though. & We saw a great visual argument for gun control as we were leaving. A guy was showing off his new $20,000 machine gun to his friends. That thing could fire a ridiculous number of rounds per second. Makes you wonder what kind of deer he thinks he's hunting.
The gun shop told us we could call a cab there, but could also call from the bar across the street with the added benefit of drinks, so we did that. We waited... & waited... played 2 games of pool & waited some more... in the most all-American bar I've ever been in. It was pretty interesting how many people were there on a Friday afternoon. Finally after 2 hours we got picked up. Went to dinner at Daniel Boulud's Brasserie in the Wynn, an ironically tony end to a rather redneck day. It was also very good - I was glad I ordered the signature short ribs. We played a little more black jack until we were almost late for the red-eye back to NYC. I thought I'd miss the scantily-clad waitresses bringing free drinks & I was right.
The tables are my favorite as well - last time we gambled at several different hotels & the Wynn was the best, & I wasn't disappointed this time. The dealers (we played blackjack) are very cheerful, like they're actually having fun as well. We were up & down during the 3 days, at worst down $2000 & at best up about $500 but ended up more or less even. Not too shabby. It got us one night comped as well.
This time I had the pleasure of discovering how great food is in Vegas. We went to Picasso at the Bellagio, which was amazing. Every course of the larger tasting menu except the main was absolutely heaven. Our mains were quite good, just not up to the standard of the rest. & the dessert! SE enjoyed his molten chocolate cake so much he told me he had a new love in his life. It's a pricey place but worth it. Plus you get to watch the fountain show every 15 minutes or so, although I wouldn't advise going outside during the sumer heat. It was over 100°F while we were there, & even though it's not humid, walking farther than the pool is really unadvisable.
We played blackjack the rest of the night, with a break in the middle for a little pick-me-up. On the one hand I feel bad for the waitresses having to wear those incredibly skimpy outfits, but also I really enjoy watching them. It's too bad Lovely Blonde couldn't come with us as originally planned, she would have loved it. We managed to get up around noon the next day & did touristy stuff like the Shark Reef (smaller than I thought it'd be, but pretty cool) & the Insanity ride at Stratosphere. That was an interesting view but it was too hot out & I got a bit nauseous. We escaped back to the wonderful air conditioning at the Wynn for dinner at SW Steakhouse. We had a great waiter, & the food was very good, but not quite as transcendental as Picasso. Their house steak sauce isn't good, which I noticed at Cut - Wolfgang Puck's place in LA - as well. I wonder why that is. You'd think they would do that the best. More gambling after dinner, neither of us having much luck. We kind of considered going to Crazy Horse but decided that it would probably just be a more expensive version of Penthouse, & it's not as fun with only 2 people.
Our last day we went to a shooting gallery. A friend suggested one, though couldn't remember the name or address except the general location but we tracked it down. American Shooter's Gun Club, 3440 S. Arville, is a no-frills shop & shooting area with a very comprehensive range of weapons. They even had Sten guns from World War II! One thing they don't really show on TV is how ridiculously loud guns are. Even ear muffs don't help much. SE thought I was a bit too excited about the guns but indulged me... we started with a .22 which we both learned to aim reasonably well & then progressed to a .357 Magnum. There really is no civilian situation where one would need a gun that powerful. It jumps a foot when fired, which makes precise aiming fairly useless, & it rips enormous holes in things. The paper target presented very little obstacle - as bloodthirsty as I am, I shudder to imagine what it would do to a body. It was fun at first & then the noise, recoil & powder burns kind of got to me. I'm really glad I got to try shooting for the first time though. & We saw a great visual argument for gun control as we were leaving. A guy was showing off his new $20,000 machine gun to his friends. That thing could fire a ridiculous number of rounds per second. Makes you wonder what kind of deer he thinks he's hunting.
The gun shop told us we could call a cab there, but could also call from the bar across the street with the added benefit of drinks, so we did that. We waited... & waited... played 2 games of pool & waited some more... in the most all-American bar I've ever been in. It was pretty interesting how many people were there on a Friday afternoon. Finally after 2 hours we got picked up. Went to dinner at Daniel Boulud's Brasserie in the Wynn, an ironically tony end to a rather redneck day. It was also very good - I was glad I ordered the signature short ribs. We played a little more black jack until we were almost late for the red-eye back to NYC. I thought I'd miss the scantily-clad waitresses bringing free drinks & I was right.
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