Travel
Northern Europe cruise | Travel day
It’s Wednesday, June 14, and our long-awaited cruise to Iceland, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, and England leaves out of Reykjavík, Iceland tomorrow afternoon.
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We usually get up between 3-4 a.m. to catch an early flight to our vacation destinations, so it was nice to have a mid-morning flight for a change. Our itinerary:
Upgrade to business class
Last week, we got an email from Icelandair letting us know about their “upgrade offer,” which consists of making them an offer to upgrade to business class, which we did, and which they eventually accepted.
In addition to much more comfortable and roomier seats, a 3-course meal, and free drinks during the 5-hour flight from Boston to Reykjavík, we got access to the Icelandair Lounge at Logan airport for our 7-hour layover.
Icelandair lounge
The Icelandair lounge opened at 2:30 and we were in it at 2:35. You’re only supposed to be let in 3.5 hours before your flight, which would have been closer to 5:30 for us, and the person at the lounge check-in raised one brow and said, “You’re kind of early, but go ahead in.”
We took advantage of its open bar for a few cocktails and had a nice lunch—all of it complimentary. And we were there long enough to have dinner, too, so we split an order of fish & chips as we wanted to save room for our meal on the flight. First world problem, I know. But since we live in a first world, it’s a valid problem.
& Caesar salad
cookies
with coleslaw and malt vinegar
Icelandair flight
There were 5 rows of business class seating on this Boeing 767-300ER, and we were in:
Awaiting us at our seats were a blanket, a pillow, a “Travel Essentials” pack, and some noise-canceling headphones. Before we could even buckle up, our attendant brought us a glass of champagne to welcome us to Icelandair.
champagne
stinkin’ earbuds.
Inflight information and entertainment
Bob’s movie summary and review:
And we each finished our respective book during the 5.25-hour flight:
Inflight 3-course meal
with Oreo crumble
Group “check-in”
We’re cruising with a group of about 150-175 gay men, a good contingent of whom have been trickling in to Reykjavík over the past few days. Here’s a group pic we received during our travel day. We’ll join them tomorrow morning when we arrive @ 6:05, and the cruise sail-away is at 6 PM.
Ode to Italia cruise – day 8 (Trieste & Venice)
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
We woke up docked in Trieste, Italy and had breakfast comprising uneaten yogurt from yesterday and some of the fruit that’s always in the suite. The port of Trieste from our balcony: (Hover to enlarge photos.
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After disembarking, we hopped on a bus for a 2.5-hour ride to Venice that turned into a 3-hour drive due to a horrific highway traffic jam in which we moved about 500 feet in 30 minutes, at which time the driver took an exit and we continued on some “back roads” for quite a while, only returning to the highway once he was sure we were past the jam.
In Venice, we boarded a water taxi along with a couple of members of our group who are really too old for that sort of transfer and are—for the most part—old, rich, white, people who don’t seem to have any coping skills when they find themselves in situations that don’t measure up to their privileged lives.
For a bit, we were in a wide-open area, but eventually entered the canals where this little idyllic scene took place:
We arrived at our hotel and exited the water taxi with only a couple of close calls of the aforementioned people falling into the water. (Hover over photos for captions.)
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After settling in, Bob and I headed out with our friend, Dan, whom we knew from the previous Seth cruise we were on in 2019, to a nearby pharmacy to get COVID-19 tests, for which a negative result was required to re-enter the United States.
We had a heck of a time finding it among the narrow and twisted streets, and by the third time someone responded to my question about where the Farmacia Al Pellegrino was with, “You go to the end there, turn right, then left, and then ask someone else,” we were on to their game.
After walking through many small squares and plazas, and seeing many local shops and restaurants, we finally found it and got tested fairly uneventfully.
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We ate some delicious pizza right across the street, since we had to return in 30 minutes to get the results of our tests—all of which came back negative, thankfully. The place was called Farini’s and the pizza was so, so good. I got ham on mine and Bob got pepperoni on his.
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Back at our room, Bob watched a couple of episodes of TV shows that he’d already seen, but not in Italian like they were here. I fiddled with the air-conditioning, spending at least 30 minutes and never did figure out how to keep the temperature colder than it was originally set to and keep it running for more than 2 minutes.
Speaking of old, white, privileged people, here are 3 things that drive me nuts about Europe: 1) ice for drinks, 2) bathrooms that are rarely free, and often confounding, 3) irregular access to air-conditioning.
We may have drifted off to sleep for about an hour, and we decided to eat in the hotel restaurant rather than walking around looking for a place—and because it had begun to rain.
We both got La caprese classica, con capperi e olive taggiasche (Classic tomatoes and mozzarella salad, capers, and taggiasca olives) for our salads.
John’s entrée: Spaghetti alle vongole, pomodoro celiegino, & basillico (Clams spaghetti, cherry tomatoes, and basil) and Bob’s entrée: Lasagna classica alla bolognese (Classic lasagna bolognese style)
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By then, it was 9:30 and since we had to be up at 4:30, we hit the sack.
Our month on Cape Cod—day 30
~Sunday~ And our month-long Cape Cod adventure—working really remotely—comes to an end. It was a nice change of pace, with seeing friends and family the highlight, and we’re thrilled to be heading back to our home—with all of its creature comforts—that we love.
We left Eastham, MA at 7 a.m. and pulled into our driveway in Raleigh, NC at 8 p.m. It’s a long time for two gentlemen of a certain age to sit in a car, but we persevered and were lucky with the traffic and the weather.
The timer on our car tripmeter seems to be off an hour, just like it was on the way up. It was almost 13 hours to the minute door to door. We stopped for about a half hour in total, so total drive time was 12 1/2 hours.
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We were surprised and pleased to learn that the George Washington Bridge toll of $16.00 is only due when entering New York, not when entering New Jersey, so no toll for that on the way home. We exited the New Jersey Turnpike at exit 6, for $16.05, and paid just a couple of other—fewer-than-$5—tolls, at least one of which was a pay-by-mail toll.
At home, we didn’t find any invoices for the tolls-by-mail that we hit on the way up a month ago, so we’re not sure what’s going on with those. We’ll pay them if/when they arrive or when we get served a subpoena to appear to pay.
We hit 2 short slowdowns—both due to police handling roadside situations—one for 15 minutes and one for 10 minutes. We pretty much sailed through the NYC stretch of I-95 only slowing down a couple of times to the actual speed limit of 45 MPH in some areas. We purposely avoided any potential fallout of the clusterfuck known as the Million MAGA March in Washington, D.C. this weekend by taking the I-495 inner loop around the city instead of 95 through the city.
We made 2 stops for gas, to use the restroom, and to eat our signature traveling dish.
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At our second stop, my “dinner” consisted of our last massa sweet bread roll, which I stuffed a hard-boiled egg into. Bob had just a hard-boiled egg.
My concoction reminded me of the Easter massa breads my paternal grandmother used to make. Hers actually had the hard-boiled eggs hidden inside the bread, not visible like the ones in this recipe picture.
When we first walked in, our home smelled “new”—like the addition had just been finished or something—and it looked so spacious!
We unloaded the food and kitchen stuff first, and Bob started putting all that away, while I unloaded the rest of the car. Then, we both enjoyed a successful-trip-welcome-home cocktail—or two.
We both eyed “the beast in the corner,” which we haven’t cast an eye upon in a month, and then we weighed ourselves to shockingly find that neither of us had gained what it felt like we’d gained considering we’d done no rigorous cardio exercise for a month, not to mention the less-than-mindful eating we’d done.
Tomorrow, we’ll get right back to it. I intend to get back into my rigorous, pre-trip routine of daily workouts:
Thanks for following our adventure over the month. Comments are welcome. They won’t appear right away, because I have them set to be moderated to avoid spam and trolls.
Our month on Cape Cod—day 29
~Saturday~ We said goodbye to Vivian and Jeff early this morning as they started the long (~13.5-hour) trek home to Greenville, NC.
We decided that we’re going to head home tomorrow instead of waiting until Monday, and we spent part of the morning packing.
We took a 2.5-mile walk before lunch, a part of which included the Cape Cod Rail Trail:
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1I can’t hear the word “tents” without thinking about this joke, which Bob introduced me to:
2I can’t hear the word “trampoline” without thinking about this meme:
Other signs of interest during today’s walk:
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When we got back to the house, we ran into David and had a real nice chat. I wish we’d’ve gotten to know him a little better while we were there. Such a nice person and good conversationalist.
We finished up some plan-aheads (a.k.a. “leftovers”) for our last dinner here.
And for dessert:
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 28
~Friday~ It was a post-celebration and drizzly day, and after a ride up to Provincetown, we mostly just chilled.
In P-town, we stopped at the Pilgrims First Landing Spot, and then drove slowly down the narrow main street, which is called Commercial Street.
[T]though many in this country know the story of the Mayflower, some might be confused about where the band of Pilgrims landed.
Many people would likely say that the Pilgrims landed at a spot to be known as Plymouth. True, the Pilgrims did land at Plymouth, dubbing it originally ‘New Plymouth,” since they departed from Plymouth, England.
But Plymouth was not the Pilgrims’ first landing spot in the New World.
Five weeks before coming ashore in Plymouth, the Pilgrims docked in at what is today Provincetown Harbor. In fact, the first written document alluding to government in the new colony, the Mayflower Compact, was signed by 41 Pilgrims while still aboard the ship in Provincetown Harbor.
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Of course, with it being off season and the time of COVID, Commercial Street looked nothing like this, as it has when I’ve been there in the past. Happy times.
And there was no “Tea Dance” (gay people’s happy hour) at The Boatslip, where it’s usually “nuts to butts” with men:
Back at the house, we had a delicious vegetable soup that Vivian had made and brought, and Bob whipped up some delectable grilled cheese sandwiches to go with it.
Naps may have happened in the afternoon, followed by a light-alcohol happy hour, but with enough nibblies that we skipped dinner.
And since Jeff and Vivian are heading back in the morning, Vivian, Bob, and I only played Scrabble, forgoing a Catch Phrase game so Vivian and Jeff could get to bed early for their early-morning departure.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 27
~Thursday~ We started the day-long celebration of Vivian’s 60th birthday with a trip to the Chatham Pier Fish Market for a lobster roll.
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Our feeding frenzy included—Vivian and John enjoying the buttered lobster roll, Bob enjoying the grilled salmon burger, and Jeff enjoying the regular lobster roll:
Buttered Lobster Roll: Fresh lobster meat tossed in warm butter |
Grilled Salmon Burger: Fresh salmon burger, lettuce, avocado, and lemon aioli on a brioche bun |
Lobster Roll: Fresh steamed lobster meat with a touch of mayo![](http://nematome.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/446ECBDD-526E-4140-9617-1C9A1B623055.jpeg") |
Vivian’s birthday festivities:
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We also made a video, complete with a hanging birthday sign, happy birthday music in the background, birthday glasses (trigger warning for epileptics) with blinking candle frames, and a birthday hat for the honoree. There is also inadvertent running commentary in the background.
We were going to edit it, but ended up just posting it in its entirety. I can’t easily embed a video here, but if you’re a Facebook friend of John, Bob, Vivian, or Jeff you can watch it there.
John, Bob, and Vivian ended the night with yet another game of Scrabble and Catch Phrase.
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Today was a good day.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 26
~Wednesday~ With more reading after visiting that cemetery on Sunday, I realized that that’s not the cemetery where those 3 Mayflower passengers were buried. To that end, Vivian and I went looking for the “real” Cove Burying Ground, which was a couple of miles away from the one we went to on Sunday.
Cove Burying Ground: “This is the oldest cemetery in Eastham, MA (Cape Cod) and very historical. Most of the people buried there are related to Mayflower families and were instrumental in the founding of the area.”
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Giles Hopkins
Born: 30 Jan 1607 | Hursley, City of Winchester, Hampshire, England
Died: 26 Apr 1690 (aged 83) | Eastham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA
Buried: Cove Burying Ground | Eastham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA
Constance Hopkins Snow
Born: 11 May 1606 | Hampshire, England
Died: Oct 1677 (aged 71) | Eastham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA
Buried: Cove Burying Ground | Eastham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA
Lt. Joseph Rogers
Born: 23 Jan 1602 | Watford, Daventry District, Northamptonshire, England
Died: 15 Jan 1678 (aged 75) | Eastham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA
Buried: Cove Burying Ground | Eastham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA
Other interesting graves we saw there included:
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While Vivian and I were out, we stopped at The General Store to see if they had any tchotchkes and for Vivian to check out the “penny candy.” She bought a refrigerator magnet and a Charleston Chew.
Our next stop was at the liquor store attached to The Superette, where Vivian was in hot pursuit of a bottle of red wine and some Narragansett beer, which is to say we hit the jackpot!
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Mid-afternoon, Bob and Vivian went for a 2-mile walk and reported back with some pictures:
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For dinner, we cooked chicken, zucchini, and chouriço on the grill, having the chicken and zucchini for dinner tonight (with a few bites of chouriço) and some green beans for Jeff.
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We ended the evening with a game of Scrabble followed by a game of Catch Phrase.
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Comments are welcome about this entry in the form below. | Read our day 27 entry.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 25
~Tuesday~ It was a beautiful weather day to take the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. We drove down to Falmouth (about an hour) to catch the ferry from Woods Hole to Vineyard Haven.
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We arrived in Vineyard Haven, walked around for just a little bit, where we found most things closed—between it being off-season (their season ended October 28) and with COVID-19 negatively affecting some of the few places that might otherwise have been open.
We caught “the city bus” from Vineyard’s Haven to Edgartown hoping to find more things open there, including a place to eat lunch.
A couple of Edgartown businesses we passed, in what turned out to an arduous search for an open lunch place, included:
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Bob took a peek into Edgartown Books:
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where John got the Turkey Club, Bob got the Chicken Avocado BLT:
Vivian had their grilled chicken, havarti, & pesto sandwich, and Jeff had their chicken salad sandwich.
We got home after dark and had a “robust”—of both drinks and snacks—happy hour, and then we just had some clam chowder for dinner, before John, Bob, and Vivian played a game of Scrabble:
and then tried a piece of that maple walnut fudge that Bob and Vivian made, which was ready and cut up into 1-inch, 81-calorie-each squares.
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Comments are welcome about this entry in the form below. | Read our day 26 entry.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 24
~Monday~ We made the 1.5-hour drive to Fall River and back where Vivian and I showed Jeff and Bob many of the places we lived in that city.
Fall River is where both of our parents and their families are from, and we moved around a lot in that area as my dad did a one-year tour of duty in Vietnam and then was on “recruiting duty” (for the United States Marine Corp) and moved to wherever they needed a recruiter next.
Here are the houses we visited today:
914 Eastern Avenue | Fall River, MA | February 1961 – January 1963. While we lived here, John was 4-6 years old and Vivian was 1-3 years old. The street to the left side of the house (in the first picture) seemed like a very steep hill at the time, and John rode his new bike down it one time, gaining so much speed that he made a sharp turn into a driveway to try and slow down, lost control, and crashed with the handle bar going through his left (face) cheek. He still has the scar to prove it, because dad didn’t think it was worth going for stitches about it and just taped it together.
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72 Dover Street | Fall River, MA | November 1964 – December 1964 and June 1966 – July 1966. We lived here the first time was when John was 7 and Vivian was 4, and the second time was when John was 8 and Vivian was 5. Our vovó (“vah-voh”) and vovô (“vah-voo”) owned this 3-story house—where they lived on the first floor, our aunt Vivian (my dad’s sister) lived on the 2nd floor, and our uncle Eddie and Aunt Laura lived on the 3rd floor—and we stayed with my grandparents for these 2 short periods of time until we found a house of our own to live in while dad did each of his 1-year tours of duty in Vietnam.
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22B Carver Street | Fall River, MA. Our mémère and pépère, our maternal grandparents, lived here for a while, and it was virtually “around the corner” from my paternal grandparents’ house on Dover street. Their address was “22B” and it was the bottom right apartment.
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56 Howland Street | Fall River, MA | July 1966 – December 1968. While we lived here, John was 9-10, and Vivian was 6-7. We remember a “mean landlord,” Mr. Daniels, who lived on the first floor of this house, while we rented the second floor from him. We went in that door to the right, which had the stairs to the upstairs just inside of it. Vivian remembers friends of hers while we lived here named “Norene and Dorene” and whose fingers were fused—two of their own fingers fused together, not one of Norene’s fingers fused to Dorene.
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45 Breezy Lake Drive | Coventry, RI | December 1968 – December 1969. While we lived here, John was 11, and Vivian was 8. We lived in this split-level house for a year while my dad was in Vietnam the second time. My aunt Annette (my mother’s sister) and her husband, Uncle Frank, lived in the downstairs, which had been closed off as its own apartment. All the while (and for a total of 30 years), my uncle was building the house next door. He was a stone mason, and he cut each individual stone of the exterior of the house to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. There are a couple of other pictures of the house in this old posting of John’s. Breezy Lake was behind these houses and we had lots of fun ice skating on it.
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Other places from our childhood that we visited today included:
Nick’s
This is a hot dog place we lived for as children, and one of the things we missed most moving down south. Sad, but true.
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St. John’s Club
St John’s Club is “the Portuguese club” that my dad belonged to for years and years, and where he was sort-of a “local hero” (being a Marine, going off to war and back). There were 2 sides to the club, the bar (where only men could go), and the restaurant side, which included a jukebox that Vivian and I used to do The Salty Dog Rag and a line dance to a couples dance to Winchester Cathedral. Today, we ordered some steamed clams and some chourico (Portuguese sausage) sandwiches, 2 of our childhood favorites.
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Notre Dame Cemetery
We brought Vivian and Jeff by to visit our grandparents, who Bob and I had visited the first week we were here.
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We had a full day and completely forgot about visiting the Lizzy Borden house, about which we’re okay.
Back at the house, we played a game of Scrabble, skipped dinner in favor of appetizers, and later played some Catch Phrase.
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On our way out of Fall River, we dropped by to see our Aunt Vivian and Uncle Nibby, spending about a half hour sitting in their driveway catching up with them. So nice.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 23
~Sunday~ We showed Vivian and Jeff the Nauset Light lighthouse and beach, and they re-created the Cape Cod chip bag pic, and then we stopped by the Eastham Windmill and Memorial Buoy Tree.
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We had lunch at home, and then walked around the Evergreen Congressional & Soldiers Cemetery, marks the site of Eastham’s second meeting house and town center in the same way that the Cove Cemetery marks the location of the original meeting house and settlement.
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There was a lot going on at this gravesite. The little animal in the right picture is a “zoom in” of one of those in the trees in the left picture.
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A Bob-and-Vivian afternoon project. Today, this looks like a square pan of baked beans, but tomorrow it’s going to be obvious that it’s maple walnut fudge.
Tomorrow we’ll all be heading to “the homestead”—Fall River, Massachusetts, where we’ll drive around and look at these houses we used to live in in the area:
- 72 Dover Street (where my paternal grandparents lived)
- 22B Carver Street (where my maternal grandmother lived in her later years)
- 914 Eastern Avenue
- 56 Howland Street
- Warren Street
- 45 Breezy Lake Drive (Coventry, RI)
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 22
~Saturday~ We’ll always remember where we were when we heard the official declaration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris.
We took a walk on the Cape Code Rail Trail, the first time I’ve been on it, and Bob’s fourth. We had beautiful weather for it with a high of 71° today.
This is mostly a biking trail, and in fact, we only saw one other person walking (her dog) the whole time. We were passed by many bikers, with maybe only a third of them giving us a verbal “Coming up on your left” warning, but no one being dangerous in any way. Some of the scenery:
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I loved this sign that we saw at a point in the trail where you could step off it and into someone’s backyard. And it reminded me of the meme on the right that I’ve seen several times lately.
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All day, we waited in great anticipation of Vivian and Jeff’s (my sister and brother-in-law’s) arrival as they made the 13.5-hour trek up here from Greenville, NC.
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Vivian is turning 60 while she’s here (on Thursday), and her “peeps” made her a birthday basket full of snacks and spirits to take on her trip up here, and she brought a special bottle of champagne that we’re going to drink on Thursday.
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Today was a good day.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 21
~Friday~ Kathy and I ran to Mac’s Market & Kitchen Eastham to get 2 lbs. of fresh haddock filets for tonight’s dinner.
After dropping it off at home, she and I went to Nauset Light Beach and walked for a little while along the shore. Then, we made a quick visit to the Eastham Windmill and Memorial Buoy Tree.
We picked up lunch at Sam’s Deli, where I ordered The Turkey Club, Bob ordered The Basil Rathbone, and Kathy ordered a cup of their Clam Chowder.
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After eating lunch back at the house, the three of us played a game of Scrabble. We were going to wait until we heard an election update to start drinking, but then Kathy—in all her wisdom—asked, “Why?” So, we enjoyed some happy hour cocktails and snacks while we played our game.
Dinner was a real treat tonight. Kathy recently made the news:
Maine Maple Haddock wins big at Maine Maple Producer’s Weekend
Katherine Vaillancourt of Georgetwon, won top entrée at the annual event.
She made this award-winning dish for us for dinner tonight, and Bob supplemented it with some zucchini sautéed in butter and garlic and some mixed greens with cherry tomatoes and feta cheese. Kathy also made the iced raisin cookies for dessert.
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This dish is award-winning for a reason. Absolutely delicious! Here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
- 2 lbs. fresh haddock filets
- ½ stick butter
- 2 short sleeves of Ritz crackers (or 1 large sleeve)
- ½ cup Maine Maple Cream
- ½ cup milk
Instructions:
- Butter 4 individual baking dishes.
- Divide haddock into serving size and lay in buttered dishes.
- Crush crackers and distribute evenly over fish.
- Dot with remaining butter.
- Drizzle Maine Maple Cream over butter.
- Add milk to each dish to the level of filets.
- Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Bake at 425° for 20-25 minutes until tops are golden.
Makes 4 servings.
In the words of my dear friend, “We made some nice memories today.”
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 20
~Thursday~ It was with great pleasure that I hung out both my figurative and literal, respectively, out-of-the-office message at the end of my work day.
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Bob walked for about an hour-and-a-half today. He visited the miniature golf course as part of the Red Barn collection of shops. Not exactly sure if that rabbit is getting ready to take a dump or get hit with an errant golf ball in a place that’ll really hurt.
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And saw potential retirement editing work for me should we decide to retire in this quiet little town.
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Speaking of signs, look at the Roger-superscripted-s Barber Shop. I sort of like it. It’s like a portmanteau of an apostrophe and the possessive “s.”
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The art of art. Buoys-as-art seems popular here. That dentist office sign has a lot going on. Is it a dentist office? Is it an art studio? Is it a dentist with her art displayed in the waiting room? Is it the “fine art of cosmetic dentistry?” It seems to be the latter if her website provides any clarity. And with all that said, she’s very accomplished.
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One of my favorite people from high school arrived late this afternoon, and we had a wonderful evening eating, catching up, and playing games. Bob made dinner and Kathy provided the homemade Boston Cream Pie for dessert. Bourbon and wine may have been consumed throughout the evening.
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Comments are welcome about this entry in the form below. | Read our day 21 entry.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 19
~Wednesday~ Bob made a grocery shopping run to the Stop & Shop this morning.
We took separate walks again today, with Bob doing his during the work day, and me doing mine after work, which felt a little bit rushed because sunset was at 4:28 today. Thanks, Daylight Saving Time.
Bob walked 3.84 miles to and back from the Cape Cod Bay coast, where he passed this (closed) thrift store and peered into its windows:
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and spent a little time on the shore, where he saw various and sundry things.
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My walk was 1.34 miles, and I captured the signs of several of the little “shopping centers” that are within walking distance of our place.
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I also came upon this strange looking building, which really stood out due to its color. Almost all of the other houses here are that classic Cape Cod gray color that the top part of this one is.
The place was all closed up, with a cinderblock standing in front of the side door. And through the window, you could see stairs, which seemed to be right in front of the window, leading to a second floor.
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And two final things—one from my walk and one from Bob’s.
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Tomorrow is my last day of work here, and I plan to start early and finish early, as my high school friend is arriving in the late afternoon.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 18
~Tuesday~ I had no work meetings today, but I did have a 5- to 10-minute impromptu video chat initiated by a colleague who’s good about keeping in touch.
We both took walks today, Bob’s earlier in the day and much longer than mine. I did mine after work, and, no, I didn’t purposely walk a route that would look like an erect penis in the MapMyWalk app. It just happened—like good, morning wood.
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Before I set out on my walk, I checked out the laundry and book exchange building, which Bob has been in several times now, but I hadn’t yet seen.
In checking out the book collection, I saw the book Bob just finished reading (highlighted in red) beside the book he contributed (highlighted in green) to the collection.
This was my first walk just to get some exercise (which I had planned to do every day while we were here since we don’t have access to an elliptical machine, but I haven’t done it), and I went into the US Post Office, which Bob also has been to several times, just to check it out. It’s much bigger than I had imagined.
I also noticed that this building that I thought was a house is actually a bank. Other than the mention of an ATM (and, admittedly, the “Member FDIC” notation, if you know what that is), it’s not at all obvious it’s a bank. Maybe if instead of the “5,” it said “nickel,” or the “5” was paired with “& Dime,” it’d’ve been obvious.
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Bob made a “Fall River staple” from my childhood for us for dinner tonight. It was “beef chow mein,” as we added ground beef to it along with the sliced celery and chopped onions. Yummy!
It’s time to brace ourselves for the evening (and probably days to come) with some bourbon and champagne on hand (for various outcomes) as Election Day 2020 unfolds.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 17
~Monday~ Today is the first day of my (short) last week working while we’re here. I’m taking off Friday, all next week while my sister and her husband are here, and the following Monday, which is the day we drive back.
Today I thought about the clocks that we’ll have to adjust the time on when we get home.
There are 12 of them, and these are in addition to the 6 that we have that adjust themselves. Why in the world would 2 people have 18 clocks you wonder, and where in the heck are they all? Good question about why so many, and here’s the inventory:
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Bob did some laundry today, and he took advantage of the little book exchange there to borrow The President’s Lady.
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I started on my 62nd book to add to my collection of 2020 books read to date.
Like a lot of people in our country tonight, we’re anxious about what tomorrow will bring, but at least we’ll always remember where we were for Election Day 2020.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 16
~Sunday~ Bob made breakfast for our guests today—scrambled eggs & sausage. I buttered and lightly pan-toasted some massa—Portuguese sweet bread. We served it all with a side of mimosas.
Before they headed back to Dorchester, Boston, we made the short ride to Nauset Beach so Maggie and Phil could see the beach.
We saw a bunch of birds out a ways on the water, and a seal very close to shore. I hope it was on high alert:
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And down on the beach, we saw this perplexing sight:
That bird had one broken leg, and it was chowing down on that young buck.
Maggie and Phil headed out from the beach. Back at the house, Bob and I had a relaxing afternoon that included a nap and a game of IRL Scrabble accompanied by happy hour.
For dinner, we had the leftovers of the meal Maggie made and brought yesterday.
In the evening, Bob (re-)watched Airport, and I finished my 61st book of the year, Olive, Again.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 15
~Saturday~ We had planned to check out the meat raffle to see what it was all about, but when we got to the Eastham Elk’s Lodge, where it’s held, there wasn’t anyone there.
Our next stop was going to be the Eastham Superette to pick up some champagne—in it, or in the attached liquor store—and to see what they actually carry in that little store for future reference. Outside the Superette was this little gem of a sculpture:
Jamie DaLomba – Metal Sculpture Art; JJ Welding – North Eastham  |
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and coming out of the store, we noticed that the Eastham Windmill, which we had planned to check out at some point, was right across the street. Also on “the green” near the windmill was a “Memorial Buoy Tree,” which is a tribute to its deceased creator, Eastham native James Filliman, who was “a clammer, a builder, a beach walker and collector, who enjoyed using things he found in nature.” Read Jimmy’s obit, if you’re interested.
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Maggie, Bob’s niece—his oldest sister’s daughter—and her partner Phil arrived today from Dorchester, Boston for an overnight visit. Maggie’s a chef for a living, and she brought dinner!
Sweet Potato Cottage Pie: Spicy ground beef with olives and raisins topped with whipped sweet potatoes; Cauliflower: Roasted with browned butter, cilantro, pepitas, and lime; Mixed Greens: Pumpkin spiced-pecans, cranberries, crumbled goat cheese.
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After dinner and many cocktails, we played a fun game during which we laughed and laughed and laughed:
“What’s something you do that’s irresponsible? was one of our questions, which led to hilarity.  |
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Here are some of the words contained in our collective responses. Two of them were kind-of popular:
It was a real fun evening—laughing a lot and learning a lot about each other. And bonus—we got an extra hour of sleep afterward.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 14
~Friday~ I took a vacation day today, like I’m doing every Friday while we’re here.
We drove to Sandwich, MA to check out the Sandwich Glass Museum. We arrived right on the (11:00) hour, which is when the glass-blowing demonstrations start, so we joined one just a couple of minutes into it.
The gentleman made 2 pieces while we watched, the first was a small vase, and the second was a small pitcher.
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After his demonstration, we walked around the museum, which was much bigger than it looked like from the outside.
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I really liked these fish-themed pieces:
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And 2 other favorites of mine:
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If you’re interested, you can see lots more in this public Facebook photo album.
After the museum, but before we left Sandwich to head back to Eastham, we stopped at the Bob O’Malley’s Whaleback Restaurant, and oh what a treat it was. The place looked much smaller than it did in the pictures on the web, and there were only 2 cars in the lot when we arrived, which we didn’t take as a good sign.
But inside, it was a quaint little place, and Beth invited us to eat in, since there was no one else in there. And she was so nice, and of course, very mask-cautious putting it on whenever she came to our table.
We ordered one seafood platter to share and each a stuffed quahog. It was all so delicious!
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Once back in Eastham, we stopped at the Stop & Shop grocery store to pick up just a few things in anticipation of guests we’re having tomorrow and Sunday. Bob’s niece, Maggie and her partner Phil, who live just outside Boston are going to visit us for the weekend.
At home we played a game of IRL Scrabble, with which enjoyed some hot tea to take off the chill. It was pretty cold, windy, and rainy out there today.
We finished off the eggnog with some eggnog martinis for happy hour tonight, and had a light dinner, since we had such a filling lunch.
I’m declaring my second Friday vacation day here a success.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 13
~Thursday~ It was my “virtual Friday” and the highlight of my work day was listening to the finalists of the We Are Red Hat Week Open Mic event. Such incredible talent across this great company of ours:
A baton twirler—complete with 2 fire-burning batons—skillfully avoided catching any of her hair, body parts, or clothing on fire; a ballcap-wearing, fisherman-looking guy singing a song from a Broadway musical; and a whirling-Dervish-like dancer to Bollywood music were among my favorites.
The chair I’m using as a desk chair is, well, let’s just say it’s not very comfortable. In addition to the back support cushion, I’m up to 2 pillows on the seat to make it comfortable enough to spend 8 hours on.
I did a Google search on “office furniture rental desk chairs” and actually found a place that rents a pretty decent chair for $37 for a month. But then, I calculated that I really only have 4 more work days here (Mon – Thu of next week), and I might take Thursday off. The following week (11/7 – 11/11), and the Monday (11/16) after, I’m on vacation, so I’m just going to make it work for another 3 or 4 days.
Bob made a walking trip to the post office to mail some postcards, where he came across this “Stamposaurus” project —”a collection box for cancelled stamps was set up for school children for art projects and for stamp collecting for all ages”—that’s been going on for 30 years. You can learn more by clicking on the “How the journey began…” photo.
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He also took note of the Eastham Public Libraries Activities board, and stopped by the General Store where they’re really getting to know him.
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There is a 100% chance of rain, pretty much all day tomorrow, so we looked for something we can do indoors. We’ve settled on, temporarily at least, visiting The Sandwich Glass Museum in, well, Sandwich, MA, some time tomorrow.
I’ve made a note of a few restaurants near the museum in which we can stop for a sandwich in Sandwich. Two leading contenders are: Bob O’Malley’s Whaleback Restaurant and Bobby Byrnes. (Hmmm, I see a theme here with these restaurant names. Do you, Bob?)
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 12
~Wednesday~ We’re getting excited about my sister and her husband coming up in a week-and-a-half, and she and I had a discussion last night about a couple of things.
She’s going to bring some food when they drive up, and she asked if I was still dieting. To which I responded with: “This is our ‘snack corner’ of the counter. Does this look like I’m still dieting?” ☺
The reality is that I am eating this junk, but I’m also practicing portion control when doing so. There was a time when I would eat a whole bag or container without giving it a second (or first) thought.
Another thing we talked about is that there are essentially 2 primary bedrooms on the first floor—with a trade-off situation. One has a TV in it, but its bathroom is smaller, with only 1 sink. The other one doesn’t have a TV in it, but its bathroom is bigger, with 2 sinks.
We asked them if they have a preference, because we don’t care. We’ve been in the one with the TV, but we haven’t watched it at all, and won’t. (We don’t have a TV in our bedroom at home.)
They chose the one with the TV in it, so Bob spent some time today moving us from one room to the other. These are the “after” pictures:
(it’s ready for Vivian & Jeff) |
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(we’ve moved into it) |
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We check our home cam each day just to make sure we’re not missing anything. We told our neighbor to feel free to park in our driveway so that it looks like someone’s coming and going there during our month away. It always makes us smile when we see their car there.
Bob always checks to see if he’d be mowing the lawn or how many leaves he’d be raking if we were there.
 I always check to see if our across-the-street neighbor is still parked on their lawn at their front door. |
I had a late/early meeting with a colleague of mine who works in Australia—7 -8 a.m. (tomorrow) her time, 5 – 6 p.m. (today) my time, so there was a slight delay to the start of our happy hour today.
Tomorrow’s my “virtual Friday” leading into my long weekend.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 11
~Tuesday~ Each year in the last week of October, we celebrate “We Are Red Hat Week” at work, which consists of a lot of activities you can opt into. Today, I participated in:
We were matched up with 5 other Red Hatters we didn’t know, from around the company, and after introducing ourselves to each other (i.e., name, team, and time with Red Hat), we answered 7 ice breaker questions. Here they are with my answers:
1. What’s your favorite part of your job?
Editing the Command Line Heroes transcripts; editing webinar titles, abstracts, and speaker bios; and editing the Red Hat Summit session titles and abstracts.
2. What’s something you love about your work at Red Hat?
Getting Red Hat Rewards and my fun, creative, and smart team.
3. What’s the most special item on your desk or in your travel bag? If you have the item, show it on the video, if desired. Briefly share why it is special, or why you like to keep it with you at your desk or when you travel.
I have a 2-picture frame of my sister receiving her doctorate’s degree and the acknowledgments page of her dissertation, which includes a thanks to me for inspiring her research.
4. What is one of your workday morning rituals? Whether it’s working out, meditating, spending time with your children or pets, do you have something you regularly like to do before you start your work day?
I’m not a morning person, so all I do before starting my workday is shower and have breakfast. I do have an after-work ritual of doing the USA Today Crossword Puzzle online with my husband. (It’s an everyday ritual; we do it on the weekends, too.)
5. What has been one of your biggest challenges during the pandemic? Little or big, what’s something you’ve been challenged by during these strange times?
Not being able to meet my friends out at a local bar on Friday nights, which we did very routinely.
6. What’s something you would never want to change at Red Hat? As we grow, change is inevitable. But, what’s something about our culture, our norms, etc. that you feel is so special that you would never want to see changed? Why?
When we’re working in the Red Hat Tower building, free bagel Wednesdays in the cafeteria. Why? Because I love both bagels and free.
7. How do you describe life at Red Hat to your family and friends? Working for the world’s largest open source software company can be unique. When people ask what it’s like to work at Red Hat, what are some of the things you describe?
I usually talk about the flexible work hours, feeling like I’m seen and heard there, how great my team is, and how much I enjoy doing work that I love.
I really enjoyed meeting the people in our group and hearing all of their answers to these questions.
Bob went on a couple of walks today, the first included a stop by the nearby post office to mail some postcards and a greeting card. There are still plenty of flowers in bloom here.
On his second outing, he saw these 2 vehicles that surprised us because we’ve passed a roadside sign, several times now, that says “John Martin” on it, and we’d both assumed—for some odd reason—that the person was a realtor. But as it turns out, he owns a local excavating company.
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One rather bizarre sign Bob came across was this:
Although we’ve never heard of them, meat raffles are definitely a thing. We might just participate in this one on Saturday if when we get there, it looks like it’s being managed safely with regards to the pandemic.
Snarky aside: Not exactly sure what that orange with the bone shoved up its hind end is doing in the picture, but whatever. 😉
Have you ever attended, or even heard of, a meat raffle? If so, do tell.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 10
~Monday~ Our Red Hat marketing organization had a “virtual offsite” today, even though we’re all offsite all the time now. When we’re in the office, this is a meeting that we have away from the office in a local establishment, which includes a catered breakfast, lunch, and an open bar “happy (2-3) hour(s)” at the end of the day.
Obviously, we can’t replicate all that virtually, and even though there’s, proverbially, “no free lunch,” we were authorized to expense our lunch today in the spirit of the meeting. Bob and I ordered takeout from a local restaurant that we’ve had our eye on since arriving.
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Bob had a busy day today—doing our grocery shopping for this week and doing our first load of laundry here in the quaint little laundry (and small library!) area that’s part of the deal here. He also cleared away our bar that we’d set up on the countertop over the dishwasher, because the owner had a new dishwasher installed today. (See what it looked like prior to being cleared.)
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To top off Bob’s busy day, he cooked homemade hamburgers for dinner on one of the two Weber charcoal grills that are here for our use.
That’s it for today.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 9
~Sunday~ At about 9:30, we headed to Fall River, which was about a 1.5-hour ride. This is the city I grew up in until a year before we moved to North Carolina when I was 13. For the year right before we moved, we lived in Coventry, RI, which we’ll visit when my sister gets here early in November.
Our first stop in Fall River was to the Notre Dame Cemetery, where both sets of my grandparents are buried. We had a hell of a time trying to find my paternal grandparents’ grave (just like I did last year—and never did find it), and it turns out the person in the office had given me the wrong plot information—think way off, like on the opposite side of the cemetery.
Thanks to my cousin, Sandy, who volunteers there and who was in touch with us yesterday with a picture of the headstone, and who provided us with the correct section and plot number by text today.
Another of my cousins, Patsy, met us there, and together we located the grave. We’d brought some cleaning materials with us, and Bob ingratiated himself to my grandparents by spit-shining their headstone.
And as it turns out, my grandfather did have a middle name, which means my father really wasn’t a junior, but since I seem to be the only one devastated by that, I’m just going to let it go.
We also found (and cleaned off) my paternal grandparents’ grave, where I said a quick, socially distanced prayer.
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Our next stop was for lunch at one of our favorite childhood eating haunts, and we passed Fall River’s “flat iron building” on the way. Doesn’t every big city have one of these?
Lunch!
They had a buy-5-get-1-free special, which we couldn’t resist. I got “sauce and onions” on mine (they don’t call it chili; they call it sauce), and Bob had ketchup, mustard, and dill pickles on his.
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We wanted to stop at Amaral’s Portuguese Bakery while we were in town, but they were closed today. Fortunately, while at the cemetery together, we’d ask Patsy about places to get some sweet bread, and she said they actually sell Amaral’s products in the grocery stores, so we stopped at a Stop & Shop and bought some of my Portuguese/Fall River favorites:
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On the way back to the Cape, just outside Fall River, we passed an exit that was very close to my Aunt Rita’s house, and I wanted to make sure she and Bob met, so I gave her a call to see if she was home and up for a short hello from outside.
She was, and we did. Love her to pieces.
An hour-and-20-minutes later, we were back in Eastham, just in time for happy hour, after which I had to have something for dinner on those sweet rolls we’d just bought. And what could be better on a Portuguese sweet roll than some chourico (Portuguese sausage)!
I know you’re glad this day and blog entry are over. If I say Portuguese one more time…
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 8
~Saturday~ We made the short trip up to Provincetown today. Every person we saw there was wearing a mask. And leave it to P-town to be inclusive:
Unequivocally, the thing I was most looking forward to in P-town was a stop at The Portuguese Bakery to get some malassadas, so you can imagine my disappointment at finding this:
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And as if to pour salt in the wound, a local walking by seeing us take this picture said, “And they’re actually closing for good. They’re not opening back up in 2021.”
I can’t find any article online to corroborate that, so I’m just going to pretend it’s not true until I see it (or read about it) with my own eyes.” Denial is not a river in Egypt.
(l) It’s so refreshing to see your humanity affirmed in a t-shirt slogan. (r) The Herring Cove tank top makes me laugh ’cause “girl” is not gonna let go of her bag no matter how high the water gets.
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Here’s Bob on the steps of the town hall recreating a picture he took there about 20 years ago.
We’ve been wondering about a couple of things since we arrived here a week ago. The first is about “heart art” on pallets we’ve seen all along the roads:
It turns out they are to support and honor the healthcare workers working on the frontline of COVID, as described in this Painted hearts spread across south shore celebrate front-line workers Coronavirus crises article.
And the second thing is why the fire hydrants here have antennas on them:
According to a Reddit discussion, they’re for when the snow drifts get high enough to cover them—so the fire fighters can find them easily and so that snow plows don’t hit the ones that are on the sides of roads.
Although, one Reddit user posits that the real reason they’re there is “so dogs can listen to the radio while they do their business.”
By the way, the colors of fire hydrants are also significant, if you didn’t know. The red ones, like the one shown here, have the lowest flow volume at fewer than 500 gallons per minute.
“Back at the ranch,” we just chilled out the rest of the day, enjoying the leftovers of yesterday’s clam fritter meal for today’s lunch. I read some, and Bob watched some YouTube entertainment.
After dinner, we put together our menu for next week, which informed our grocery store list for Bob’s Monday Stop & Shop trip.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 7
~Friday~ I got my first-ever “cut on the Cape”—a haircut, that is. Bob did it using our new clipper set, which includes a vacuum and trap that catches the hair while it trims.
That must be a “sample” of gray hair that came with the clippers to show you how the vacuum works.
At a little after 9 a.m., we headed south to Yarmouth, where we stopped at Target before going to The Edward Gorey House, which opened at 11 a.m.
For those who don’t know: Edward St. John Gorey (February 22, 1925 – April 15, 2000) was an American writer and artist noted for his illustrated books. His characteristic pen-and-ink drawings often depict vaguely unsettling narrative scenes in Victorian and Edwardian settings. Many people know him for his artwork for PBS’s Mystery.
The curator was very knowledgeable and likeable and did a good job of giving us an overview of the house and the life of Mr. Gorey. In this public Facebook album, you should be able to see the just under 50 pictures I took in the museum house if you’re interested.
Upon leaving, we asked the curator if he knew where we could get some “clam cakes,” and he gave us a few possible places, from which we chose the Chatham Pier Fish Market, where we both ordered the “famous” clam fritters.
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Less than a mile from this restaurant was the Chatham Light lighthouse, which a lot of people confuse with the Nauset Light lighthouse that’s on the bag of Cape Cod chips (which has a red section to it, and which we have a picture of further down in this entry), and since we were so close to this one, we stopped by for a picture.
On our drive back, we saw this amusing sign—which I at first thought was mocking my hips—as we entered into a densely populated area:
And then back in Eastham, we saw this sign, which we of course had to get a picture of, in the front yard of a house on the way to the Nauset Light lighthouse:
At the Nauset Light lighthouse, we used the bag of Cape Cod chips we bought specifically to use as a prop in this picture, and then I added the text to it once we got home.
Rounding off our “clammy” day, we had some fantastic clam chowder for dinner that we bought in the seafood section at the grocery store on Sunday.
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I am going to go ahead and call my first Friday off here a big success. Tomorrow, we’re planning to go up to “P-town.”
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 6
~Thursday~ I’m pretty lucky in that I usually have just 1-2 work meetings a day, and often I don’t have any at all on 1 or 2 days of the week. That was not the case today. I had meetings from 10:00 to 4:00, with 2 of them overlapping, which I had to choose between. Our team meeting won out, because it’s usually fun, and I love our team.
Bob took another walk today, this time to the east coast of the Cape where he encountered the Nauset Lighthouse of the Cape Cod chip bag fame.
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Also in that area were The Three Sisters lighthouses, which earned their nickname because when looked at from afar, they looked like black-hatted women dressed in white. (Full disclosure: The hyphen is my own. I don’t think they meant “Black, hatted women,” and if they did, they should have capitalized the word black and added that comma. But I digress.)
And, of course, he found the Atlantic Ocean coastline.
I received an interesting message and photo from my first cousin about our paternal grandparents’ grave that I talked about yesterday: “Just thought I’d show you that our paternal grandparents’ grave is not buried. It’s one of the graves I monitor, and I just called the office to have the stone raised.”
One interesting thing about this picture is seeing that “M.” in my grandfather’s name. It’s my understanding that he didn’t have a middle name, since my dad was named Manuel Martin, Jr.—and he was proud of that junior and always included it when he said/wrote his name. If my grandfather did have a middle name, and my dad didn’t, dad would not be a junior. I’ll have to follow up with my aunt (dad’s sister) about that.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 5
~Wednesday~ Another uneventful workday, which is exactly what we like.
Bob took a drive to Orleans for a Stop & Shop grocery store run and a TJ Maxx stop (considering a door mat, some potholders or oven mitts, and a couple of wash cloths).
After lunch, he took a walk to the nearby Cape Cod Rail Trail, one of the national rails-to-trails conversion projects.
At the grocery store on Sunday, we saw this lobster already removed from the shells for just under $19 for the package. And in our typical fashion, we hemmed and hawed about spending that much money on something, but ended up buying it. It was totally worth it!
We’ve begun to think about things to do this long weekend. All of my weekends while here are going to be “long” weekends, because I’m taking all Fridays off.
A couple of things we’re considering so far, one of which was suggested by a Facebook friend who knows we’re here, include:
- The Edward Gorey House in Yarmouth: In what will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me well, I’m interested in the current exhibit there called “He wrote it all down Zealously: Edward Gorey’s Interesting Lists.”
I love lists, tracking, spreadsheets, and charts, and if you need any more proof of that, visit my My quantified self page. It’s a list of lists, essentially!
- The Portuguese Bakery in Provincetown: I want some malassadas (“Portuguese doughnuts”), which always remind me of my Portuguese paternal grandmother who used to make them for us as children. (She’d roll over in her grave if she could see what they’re getting for these at $3.15 a piece!)
- The city of Chatham: At least 3 of my Facebook friends have spent time in this city, and we want to check it out.
- Notre Dame Cemetery in the city of Fall River: I grew up in Fall River, and although we plan to spend a full day there when my sister and her husband are visiting later on in our stay here, Bob and I are thinking about going there on Sunday to most likely visit the cemetery where both sets of my grandparents are buried.
I visited there last year about this time, and this time I will bring a trowel with us to “dig out” my paternal grandparents’ in-ground headstone if it’s still in the same shape as it was then and shown here.
Yes, my paternal grandparents’ headstone is under there
(This is the grave in which my grandmother would be rolling over about the malassadas.)My maternal grandparents’ grave 
Getting excited about the weekend just creating this entry! Tomorrow’s my “virtual Friday.”
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 4
~Tuesday~ Another successful work day. We experienced a short, mid-afternoon power outage, but fortunately, I had recently saved the document I was working in, so I lost very little work. This is the second outage we’ve had since we arrived. The first one was the first day, and it was in the middle of the night, so no harm done. Hopefully it won’t be a “regular” thing. UPDATE: Large power outage affecting the Outer Cape
Bob explored a little more today, taking a walk to the closest coast. Where we are in Eastham is a just a tad bit closer to the west coast of the Cape than the east coast, so he went west, following a sign for Cooks Brook Beach.
He passed some “rainbow art”:
before reaching the beach:
You know who left those footprints all over the place, right?
We bought some eggnog at the Stop & Shop on Sunday, and we used some of it to make eggnog martinis for happy hour tonight. Good stuff.
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Here’s the recipe:
A dear friend from high school, who now lives in Maine, was in touch today, and we’ve made plans to see each other while we’re here. So excited.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 3
~Monday~ I found the local classical station, Classical 107.5 WFCC (“Cape Classical”) to listen to on the radio during my editing day. So far it’s pretty good. It’s nice to know, too, that at any time, I can tune in to my “home” classical station, 89.7 WCPE, which streams on the internet 24 hours a day.
Funny thing related to this, when we first got here, driving up the Cape, I remember thinking how “small town” the entire Cape is and thinking about what it might be like living here, and I thought, “There’d be no symphony or opera here for entertainment, for sure.” But, lo and behold, one of the first things I heard when I turned on “Cape Classical” was an ad for the upcoming Symphony Spoooktacular sponsored by none other than the Cape Symphony! So much for preconceived notions.
We solved the mystery as to whether this “fan-like appliance” in the upstairs hallway was a fan, a humidifier, or a dehumidifier.
It’s actually a Whirlpool Whispure 510 air purifier. You know you wanted to know.
My first day working from here was smooth sailing—I started at 7:30 and quit at 4:30.
During his day, Bob took a walk around the area checking out the businesses that are within walking distance of us, which include The General Store (red sign to the left), a U.S. Post Office (in the middle), and a Ben & Jerry’s (to the right). Not pictured, but just around the side of Ben & Jerry’s is a Dunkin’ doughnut place.
There are several others businesses, too, including the Cumberland Farms convenience store we walked to on our first night here, a liquor store, and several restaurants, including a couple of seafood places and a deli.
After work, we walked together to check out Willy’s Gym, 0.4 of a mile from our place, to see what kind of temporary (month-long) memberships they might offer, and how it was being managed for safety during the pandemic.
It’s a decent place; it even includes a pool, but it’s $140 each for a month, and that’s not going to work. That’s a year and 2 months each in Planet Fitness value. $280 is way too much for a month just to access an elliptical machine, which is all we’ll use there. I mean we only paid $500 to buy our own elliptical machine at home!
Upon returning home, we did our daily USA Today Crossword Puzzle online and had happy hour. Rituals. Comforting.
I texted the owner this evening to help us figure out how to get the DVD player working and how to access Netflix from this entertainment center setup, because we couldn’t get it to work. It turned out a third remote was needed that was in one of the bedrooms instead of in the living room where it was needed.
So, Bob is back in business tonight for his movie and TV watching, and I’ll start on my next book club book. Life is good.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 2
~Sunday~ Since we fell asleep so early last night, we got up at 5 a.m.
I checked out the upstairs, which I hadn’t done yesterday, and I was delighted to find that there was another “desk” (which I put in quotes, because it was the same as the one downstairs and is really just a hard plastic table), and I decided to set up my “office” up there. It’s the room with the bunk beds in it.
At just before 10 a.m., we headed out to the nearest “big city” (Orleans, MA), to shop at a TJ Maxx for a couple of non-grocery items (e.g., an ice bin to put in the freezer to hold ice cubes, some measuring spoons, and a kitchen sink stopper) and the Stop & Shop grocery store, which turned out to be right next door to the TJ Maxx.
Back at the house, I put together my workstation to be ready to use first thing in the morning. Success:
Bob put the groceries away and did a hundred other things to make this house our own, such as re-organizing the kitchen to have things where he wants them and to store away things we’re not going to use (like a Keurig coffee machine), sweeping the deck, organizing a messy storage area under the stairs, and figuring out how the electric fireplace works.
We actually had a visitor this afternoon, David, who lives here—nearby and year-round—and is a business partner of the owner, and who was so nice! He wanted to let us know that there is a water main issue with the next-door laundry facility that’s supposed to be available to us while we’re here and that we are welcome to use his washer and dryer at any time.
Bob followed him over to his place, where he showed him how to access his laundry area, which is accessible without entering his home, and how the machines work. Bob got to know him a little bit during their time together, and it turns out he’s gay (and used to live in San Francisco with his now-deceased partner), and he told us that there’s a Lesbian couple staying nearby. We’re everywhere.
We tried to figure out, to no avail, the TV/DVD player set-up, and we’ll text the owner about that tomorrow.
Bob brought fresh jalapeños from our yard with us and made “poppers” with them as our dinner appetizer tonight, and they were most delicious—as always.
Hopes and dreams for tomorrow
- Me: Work my first day from here.
- Bob: Take a walk around the area.
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Our month on Cape Cod—day 1
~Saturday~ Since I’ll continue working remotely through at least the end of the year, my husband (Bob) and I are opting for a change of scenery. We’ve rented a little place on Cape Cod for a month!
I’ll work Mondays through Thursdays and take off Fridays during this time. For Friday day trips, P-town is about 35 minutes north of us and Hyannis is about 35 minutes south of us—with its ferries to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. You might be renting a place in New England if one of the kitchen amenities listed is a lobster pot!
I also have extended family in Fall River, MA; Westport, MA; Swansea, MA; Assonet, MA; and Tiverton, RI (all within about an hour-and-a-half of us) who we’ll try to safely visit during our month here, since none of them have ever met Bob.
This is the first of daily blog entries I’ll make to remember our experience.
Departing Raleigh, NC
We had our alarm set for 3 a.m., but at 2:20, we both realized neither of us was going to fall back asleep, so we just got up, had some cottage cheese for breakfast, finished packing the very few things we didn’t pack last night, and got on the road some time between 3:30 and 4:00.
Packing
Reason #263 that it’s a good thing neither of us has kids, because there really wouldn’t have been room for any of their stuff. The car was packed to the gills.
Food
Bob had planned food for us to eat en route, and the highlight was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and homemade banana bread. We enjoyed this at a rest area in Maryland at about 9:13. It seems early for a lunch, but since we’d started out at 3 in the morning, it was apropos.
Travel
The trip was fairly uneventful. We did have a little confusion at times between what route Google Maps was telling us to take vs. what our AAA Trip Tik was telling us to take vs. just staying on I-95 North the whole way.
We made 3 stops along the way, and we were surprised, and pleased, at the vast majority of people that were wearing masks at the rest stops and gas stations.
Tolls
The tolls situation was less than ideal. Once getting north of Virginia, there were more tolls than we’d anticipated, and some of them ended up not collecting, some of them had cash-only lanes, and some of them were designated as “pay-by-mail” tolls.
The first toll road we approached had all the signs intact about stopping to pay your toll, but when we got to the booth, it said to just keep on going. We didn’t know if they weren’t collecting tolls because it was Saturday, or because they didn’t want to staff the booth because of COVID-19, or what.
Getting on the New Jersey Turnpike, the “NO EZ-Pass” lane we got in flashed yellow lights (from green) after we’d already chose the lane, and when we got to the booth, it wasn’t staffed, and a digital sign flashed: “No tag scanned. Keep moving.” Our booth/lane looked just like the 2 on either side of it at which we saw a driver take a ticket from a machine as they went through. Since there was no machine from which to take a ticket at ours, we just kept going and no one chased us or stopped us. At the end of the turnpike—I’m pretty sure we went the entirety of it—I told the cashier we didn’t get a ticket, but that we’d entered at the Delaware Bridge, and she charged us $18 and some change, which was the price indicated for a “lost ticket.” Whatever.
There were definitely more tolls than we anticipated. We paid $18.85 to go over that unimpressive George Washington Bridge, on which they could use some of the money they’re collecting to repave, if you ask us.
And a few of the toll booths were pay-by-mail booths where they scanned our plates, I guess. We’re concerned that we’re not going to see our mail for over a month. We need to look up how long you have to pay them before they start accruing late fees or fines. We can’t even ask our neighbors to be on the watch for them, because our mail is being held at the post office until Nov. 14.
Traffic
We did hit a highly annoying snag on I-95N through NY, where we experienced bumper-to-bumper traffic for about 45 minutes to an hour. And it was one of those situations where traffic would just come to a crawl or stop for no obvious reason whatsoever. After some time, it would pick back up—with no accident or any other thing in sight that might explain the slowdown—and then again after some time slow down again for no apparent reason. At what point we said:
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Arrival
We arrived at about 4:30 p.m., which was 13 or 13.5 hours after we left. I’m not sure how this tripmeter on our car calculates time, but it seems to be an hour or so off. The mileage seems correct, as Google maps estimated between 761 and 821 miles.
Because we were ready for a celebratory drink after a day on the road, the first thing we did was set up the bar in the place and have a toast to the start of our month-long adventure.
Then we took a short walk to the Cumberland Farms convenient store super close to our place to buy some ice, and we each got an ice cream treat. (Me, an ice cream sandwich; and Bob, a Cumberland Farmhouse black raspberry chocolate ice cream sandwich.)
There were two (frozen, Red Barron, pepperoni) pizzas left in the fridge, and we had one of those for dinner after checking with the owner that it was okay to eat them.
Bob made up our bed, and I laid down on it at about 8:30 and started reading a book on my phone on Libby. The next thing I knew, it was 5:00 in the morning Sunday.
Hopes and dreams for tomorrow
- Take a ride to see the area.
- Drive to the nearest “big” town, which is Orleans, MA, to its Stop and Shop grocery store and TJ Maxx store.
- Bob to unpack and put away everything in our house.
- John to set up each of our personal computers and then set up his workstation, including a printer provided by the owners.
- John to devise our daily blog entry.
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60th birthday trip day 6: Hyannis morning, home in the evening
~Wednesday, 10/11/17~ I got up at 8 o’clock. I had breakfast across the street at The Coffee Table Café, having a sausage, egg, and cheese bagel and a cup of coffee.
Back at my room, I wrote out a couple of postcards and worked on my blog entry about the three highlights of my 30 – 39 years decade, arguably the most significant decade of my life until this past one, the 50 – 59 years decade. The three 30 – 39 years highlights were: 1) touring Europe with our parents, 2) quitting IBM and working on my novel, and 3) coming out.
I had asked for a noon, instead of 11 o’clock, check out and did so right at noon.
LUNCH
On my walk to the free shuttle at The Steamship Authority to take me to the park-and-ride to catch the Plymouth & Brockton bus to Logan Airport, I passed a place called Spanky’s Clam Shack & Seaside Saloon.
I decided to go in and have lunch to avoid the over-priced food at Logan airport, and I opted for the clam chowder and two stuffed quahogs, both of which were delicious.
Menu description:
Cape Cod Clam Chowdah: House made, New England style. Cup $6.49 Bowl $7.99
Menu description:
Stuffed Quahog: Cape Cod favorite, house-made quahog stuffed and served with lemon.
$5.99 for one, or two for $9.99
Inside the restaurant was this saying:
which always makes me think of the origin of the idiom: “Happy as a clam at high tide.” Over the years, it has been abbreviated to just “Happy as a clam,” which really leaves you to wonder why a clam is associated with being happy.
BUS RIDE TO LOGAN AIRPORT
I walked the rest of the way to the Steamship Authority, caught the free shuttle to the Hyannis Transportation Center, and waited for the next trip to Logan to leave. It was about 20 minutes late, and there were a lot of people waiting to get on it.
We picked up a bunch of people at the four stops along the route. When we got to the final one, in Rockland, there were three people waiting who couldn’t get on because there was no more room.
Although the bus advertised:
the outlets weren’t working, so my phone battery was desperately low by the time we got to Logan.
STANDBY ATTEMPT AND RUNNING INTO BROOKE
My flight to Raleigh wasn’t until 8:55 PM, but I was hoping to catch the 5:05 flight. I did get on the standby list, and made it to the gate on time, but there was one guy ahead of me on the list, and he got the only seat that became available.
A colleague of mine, Brooke Beasley, was on the 5:05 flight, and we chatted until she boarded. A guy next to us saw my Red Hat t-shirt on and struck up a conversation with his. He worked for Microsoft and was familiar with our Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® on Microsoft Azure and other Red Hat and Microsoft partnership products.
Since I had four hours to kill, I had some dinner, and then worked on my blog entries for yesterday and today.
THE FLIGHT
I was in seat 1A again, and the guy in 1C, seeing my shirt, asked me if I worked for Red Hat.
“I do,” I said.
“I just had drinks last night with my friend who works for Red Hat,” he said.
“Cool,” I said, “But I’m not traveling on business; I’m on a vacation trip here. I’ve just been on Nantucket for two days, Martha’s Vineyard for two days, and spent one day in Hyannis. I’m celebrating my 60th birthday, which is on Friday.”
The guy sitting in 1B, being talked across, took a quick glance at me, and then another hard look.
“Yes, this is what 60 looks like, handsome, and your day will come,” I thought.
My trip ended fortuitously with my two bags waiting for me when I landed, since although I hadn’t made the 5:05 flight they had.
And then, the best part of all, Bob picked me up.
60th birthday trip day 5: Martha’s Vineyard morning, Hyannis evening
~Tuesday, October 10, 2017~ I woke up before my alarm, and when I looked out the window I saw that the sun was about to rise. I set my phone camera to time-lapse mode and recorded it for posterity. What it looked like as it started:
BREAKFAST
I waffled about where to go for breakfast (but didn’t have waffles)—between going back to the bagel place or the diner. Murdick’s won out. Today I chose a cinnamon and raisin bagel with some garden veggie cream cheese. Once again, the bagel was incredibly soft and delicious.
I took a seat at the counter that faced outside, and after a while a truck pulled up with a classic Portuguese name in the name of its business.
RETRIEVING MY CREDIT CARD
When I went to pay for my breakfast, I noticed that I was missing my credit card, so I walked back to where I had dinner last:
The hostess told me the bartender on the second floor would have any card left there last night, and I was greatly relieved when he found mine in his pile. I had to wait a minute for him to finish making two Bloody Marys he was in the midst of when I walked up, and I found myself drooling when he added the stalk of celery and two huge shrimps—cocktail style.
Back at The Harborside Inn, I captured the doors of two of the buildings that make up the inn, one of which is the one I’m staying in, The Ripley House.
ROAMING THE HARBORSIDE INN PROPERTY
I took some pictures of the harbor in the mid-morning sun and then walked around the conglomeration of buildings that make up The Harborside Inn and took some more:
Looking straight out from my balcony
Looking right from my balcony
My balcony
Looking to the left below
Looking straight out below
Looking to the right below
Hall door to my room
Stairway to my room
Poolside grills
The Ripley House (my room is the top, middle one)
LUNCH AT THE DINER REDUX
On the way to lunch I stopped at Edgartown Books again to pick up a card for the mother of a friend of mine who has asked all of her friends to send cards to her mother for her 87th birthday on October 16. I passed this fabulous item on the way to the card section:
I returned to the diner determined to have something other than seafood for lunch. I settled on the great American hamburger and fries and topped it all off with a coffee-flavored milkshake.
MAKING MY WAY BACK TO THE FERRY
While out walking around yesterday, I found the Edgartown Visitor Center, which is where the city bus picks up, and I found out that I needed to catch the #13 to Oak Bluffs, it came pretty much every hour, and the fare would be $2.50.
So, today, I knew right and where to go. The bus was a little late, but I was catching one an hour ahead of the one I probably could have made it in time on, for this very reason.
Back at the ferry, there was a huge tour group (at least 100, if not 150, people) waiting for the same ferry I was getting again. I listened to several of them having conversations, and in that short amount of time, I’d picked out a few people who would be getting on my nerves if I were traveling with them.
I made this facebook posting about one of them:
PSA: If you fancy yourself a talented whistler, and you do it all the time in public, I’m going to tell you what your friends won’t: It’s annoying as hell.
I did this same thing—being judgmental about people in a group tour—back in Nantucket at The Nantucket Inn. Ironically, I chose that hotel, and The Harborside Inn that I stayed at here on Martha’s Vineyard, because they were the accommodations used for a Road Scholar trip that I’d consider taking before deciding to book this trip myself.
I’m happy to say that this ferry ride was completely calm, I didn’t even think about being on a boat most of the way, and it was only an hour long.
THE HYANNIS HARBOR HOTEL
When the ferry started slowing down indicating we were close to port, I checked how far it was to walk to my hotel, because I knew it was close by, and I laughed out loud to myself thinking, “If only I could walk on water.”
The Hyannis Harbor Hotel was right across the street from the pier we arrived at, which was great. I got this cute little map when I checked in:
Once in my room, I had a few cocktails—I’m committed to not having to throw away any of the bourbon I bought last Friday when I arrived—and I wrote for a couple of hours.
I loved that they’d thought to provide extra outlets for us gadget-loving people in such a convenient way:
DINNER
At around 7:30, after googling “Gay Hyannis,” I set out to have dinner at emBargo—where Tuesday night is ½-priced tapas night.
On my walk, I passed the local library, which I so would have stopped in if it were open. I love visiting libraries in the towns I vacation in.
I also passed the JFK Museum, which I would have stopped in, too, if it were open or if I were going to be in Hyannis longer.
I arrived at my destination, and I liked the way the sign emphasized the word bar in the middle of it. Where I’d seen it advertised, it was written as “emBargo,” which didn’t really capture it.
The bartender explained to me that not all of the tapas on the extensive list were half-price—that the ones that had an asterisk by them were not. Those aside, the list was plenty long enough to easily choose two that I wanted to try:
a
I considered getting dessert there, but I neither wanted anything that would stuff me nor break the bank, so I decided to wait. I asked the waiter if it was going to get “any gayer than this” in here, which would mean “gay at all,” and he laughed saying there was a drag show at 11:30 and that I should stick around.
Seeing how it was only 10:00, I didn’t want to wait around that long, so I left. Once outside I walked past a convenience store and got the hankering for an ice cream sandwich, which met both of my criteria—wouldn’t make me stuffed or break the bank. It was perfect.
Walking back to my hotel, I felt my back pocket where my wallet was and panicked, because it wasn’t there. I thought, “Oh my goodness; I must have left it on the counter when I paid for my ice cream sandwich.”
I turned around and headed back, but then felt down in the bottom left pocket of my cargo pants (so many pockets, so little time), and there it was. Whew!
LATE-NIGHT STORIES AROUND THE FIRE PIT
When I got back to the hotel, the huge sit-around fire pit was going (pretty sure it was a gas fire pit) and there were three people sitting around it.
They saw me looking, and said, “Come on over.”
There was one woman and two men there. From what I could surmise, the man and woman sitting near each other were both on the same tour, but weren’t a couple.
The other man sat opposite from them and only participated in their conversation intermittently, mostly to give his take on some matter of the local area.
Once the two tourists left, the night grew colder and darker as the remaining man and I talked about a number of things. He was a pilot who hasn’t flown for a year, because he’s out on disability with knee issues and his response time can’t be counted on in dire situations.
We commiserated about failing knees, as I shared about my two arthroscopic surgeries on my left knee, how aging in general pretty much sucks, and how we were both too familiar with elder care and the role reversal that often comes with it.
When I mentioned that my birthday was coming up on Friday, he shared, “Mine was a couple of months ago and my mom died that day.”
60th birthday trip day 4: On Martha’s Vineyard
~Monday, October 9, 2017~ I got up at 8 o’clock and after a shower, I headed down to a sitting area off the lobby of the main building where there was a nice view and a bunch of tables.
There was a sign at the entrance that said, “Reserved for Homeowners’ Meeting,” but no one was in there.
The lady at the registration desk said, “You can go on in. The meeting doesn’t start until 10 o’clock.”
I enjoyed some complimentary coffee from the lobby, while I worked on my blog entry about my day yesterday and the one about the highlights of my second decade on the planet, which I also posted later in the day.
People started coming in for the meeting at about 9:50, and I packed up and set out for some breakfast after asking the person at the registration desk if she could recommend a place close by for some bagels.
BREAKFAST AT MURDICK’S
I had some coffee, a sesame seed bagel (Sorry, Chuck!), and although it wasn’t on the menu, I asked if I could have an egg on the side with it.
“Are you going to eat here?” asked the cashier, who looked a little like Oprah Winfrey in her role in The Color Purple.
“Yes,” I said.
“Okay, we can do that,” she said.
I grabbed some coffee to enjoy while I waited:
A few minutes later, the cook brought my bagel and egg to my seat:
When I was done, I went up to the cashier and I said, “I just wanted to tell you that my bagel was deliciously soft and my egg was perfectly cooked. And I appreciate both of you.”
She bowed her head as if she were praying while I was talking and at the end, looked up, smiled, and said, “Thank you for taking the time to say that.”
On the way back to my hotel, I passed by Edgartown Books, which had this sign beside it advertising a cafe behind it. Now that’s a flag I could get on my knees for.
AN AFTERNOON OF WRITING
The homeowners’ meeting was over when I got back to the hotel, and I took a seat back in that area and did some glorious writing for several hours. And when I say writing, that includes the time to get my pictures onto my laptop in order to upload them into my blog entries, which is quite a tedious process including these steps:
- Uploading them from my phone to Dropbox.
- Renaming them on Dropbox so that their filenames will indicate what they are.
- Downloading them to my laptop.
- Uploading them to a WordPress photo album.
- Adding them into my blog entry.
LUNCH AT THE LOCAL DINER
I walked around with the goal of finding somewhere to have lunch. When I came across the Edgartown Diner, I thought of this recent Facebook posting by my friend Hugh Hollowell:
In a strange town all by myself, so of course I found a diner to eat breakfast in. In a real sense, they are like churches, with a public liturgy, a crowd of regulars, a common text and while there are many choices, we all have our favorites. You have your twenty-third psalm, I have my ham-and-cheese omelet with a side of fruit. There is a common architecture: Formica tables and broad expanses of glass facing the street, a counter that serves the single folks, the pot of coffee, the orange juice machine. Unlike most churches, however, newcomers are welcome with no expectation you will ever be back. They are content for you to join their community just for today, to participate as much or as little as you want, and to leave happier than when you arrived. “I don’t know you or your story, fella, but you look hungry. Come on in,” they seem to say. And so I do. They are not offended by the book in my hand, by my desire for solitude on a rainy morning, by the stubble on my unshaved face or the coffee stain on my t-shirt. Everyone is welcome at the church of the diner.
And so I entered:
And because I was a “single,” I took a seat at the counter. I hadn’t really planned on having another fish meal, but what they heck. I was in a local diner, caught up in the moment, and vacationing on Cape Cod for crying out loud.
On the way back to the hotel from the diner, I stopped in:
These were the stairs leading up to the second floor:
I just browsed, and this was probably my favorite book title of all, whose synopsis read: “Edamame and Edapapa meet their new ‘little bean’ in this adorable baby board book. With bright, colorful illustration and a touch of clever rhyming, Edamame and Edapapa share the arrival of their newest family member.”
WRITING AND NAPPING
I did some more writing in the afternoon and then took a glorious nap.
The remnants of hurricane-turned-tropical-storm Nate were passing through today, so although it wasn’t windy, really, it was a gray, drizzly day. Perfect napping weather.
DINNER
My “plan” for tonight was to go to a place I had seen while out walking last night and have some fried clams. But when I got to The Seafood Shanty and saw these two things on the menus, the rest was history:
I walked back to the hotel under an umbrella protecting me from the sleep-inducing breeze and drizzle, and I passed a local pub with a bunch of people cheering for some local team or other in some sport or other.
60th birthday trip day 3: Morning on Nantucket, evening on Martha’s Vineyard
~Sunday, October 8, 2017~ I was up at 7:00, a half-hour before my alarm was set for. After a few minutes, I knew I wasn’t going to fall back asleep, so I decided to get up and get my workout out of the way, which is very uncharacteristic of me.
I’m already not a morning person, and the only thought that got me there was, “Think of how good it will feel to have that over with so early in the day.” Plus, since today was a travel day, I wouldn’t have to worry about doing it once I got to Martha’s Vineyard.
A LADY IN THE EXERCISE ROOM
No, I’m not talking about me. There was another lady (inside joke) in there, whom I feel like I spent a disturbing amount of time wondering if I’d be physically attracted to if I were straight.
She was contorting her body into all kinds of inane positions, possibly yoga positions, as I’m not familiar with them, so wouldn’t recognize them if I saw them. She stood on her hands in one corner for a minute or so. On two separate occasions, she laid on the floor, face up, and threw her legs up over her head and touched the ground with them.
On another occasion, she bent over with her head all the way to the ground with her face looking between her legs. I wished she’d’ve done it facing the other way, as all I could see was her face, about two feet below her front-and-center ass, looking right where I was on the elliptical machine. Perhaps it was that yoga position double-down doggie style. Do straight porn movies start off with the bom-chicka-wah-wah music that gay porn movies start off with?
Oh, and did I mention her pink thong? All kinds of materials and fabrics going on there between the small of her back and the top of the crack of her ass.
MOM’S BREAKFAST REDUX
Today there was no fog, and I sat outside on the deck for breakfast. I actually ate less than I did yesterday, perhaps because it was still so close to the work I’d just done to burn off calories.
Today, they had French toast, which is one of my all-time favorite breakfast items, instead of the pancakes.
Out on the deck, after only a second sip of my cranberry juice, a bee landed on the rim of the glass, promptly slid down the inside into the juice, and eventually drowned. Bee be-gone. Ah, the circle of life.
WRITING AND WAITING
Checkout time was 11 a.m., so after breakfast, I packed up and went ahead and checked out at about 10:15. I sat in the lobby in my same wicked wicker whale seat to work on yesterday’s blog entry, and who should walk into the lobby at one point but Jim and Dawn.
“Nerd!” she yelled.
“Maybe next time you won’t judge so quickly. I could turn out to be a very fun guy. You never know,” I retorted.
“No kidding, uh?” she laughed.
They were getting ready to head out, and we reiterated what a good time we’d had with each other and said our goodbyes.
A SO-LESS-FUN VAN RIDE INTO TOWN
I caught the free 11 a.m. shuttle into town. Another guest was going into town just to shop, and she struck up a conversation. Not a fun person at all. Bless her heart.
She was a critical care nurse and was currently in her 41st year working, 61 years old, and waiting until she’s 65 to retire so she can have medical coverage though Medicare. Such a statement of our times, when you don’t get retirement medical benefits after 40 years of service even when your employer is a hospital. Bob can relate.
LUNCH
Even though my ferry didn’t leave until 2:30, I was able to check my two bags right away, and then I walked around the wharf area, which is quite quaint, and I looked for a place to eat something.
While walking, a store caught my eye in that the name, Vineyard Vines, made me think that maybe they’d have a nice t-shirt to buy. Boy, was I wrong.
As soon as I walked into the place, I knew it put the up (price) in upscale. Furthermore, I was totally turned off by what apparently was their shtick—to indelibly wrinkle the shirt sleeves of their merchandise.
Okay, folks. These men’s shirts were NINETY-EIGHT DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS each. Bye, Felicia.
Back to my lunch: I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, I didn’t have that much time, and I didn’t want to eat too much, all of which led me to The Hub, where I spied an Italian Panini on the menu that sounded delicious. And it was—with pepperoni, salami, melted provolone cheese, and roasted red and jalapeno peppers in it.
THE FERRY RIDE
After lunch, I headed back to the wharf, where the 2:15 ferry to Hyannis was loading. One of the workers said to a colleague, “There are so many dogs on this boat!” I watched a bunch of them, including at least 4 bulldogs with their endearing underbites, sauntering their way up the gangplank.
Here’s the boat and another dog that came up at the last minute:
That Hyannis ferry pulled out at 2:16, and five minutes later our ferry to Martha’s Vineyard pulled in. Today was the last day for this ferry between Nantucket and Martha’s vineyard this season. And I could see why. There were only about 25 of us waiting to board, while the one to Hyannis had 100-200 people on it.
Thank god this trip was only one-hour-and-fifteen minutes. I should have known it might be iffy when the captain said after telling us where the life jackets were stored, “It’s probably gonna get pretty choppy out there today.”
I started off on my laptop, but quickly realized that reading and writing with the rocking that was going on was not going to be a good combination.
At about halfway through, we were rocking back and forth so severely that huge waves of water were coming up over the side of the boat and soaking the window I was sitting next to, like when a car passes you in pouring down rain and throws enough rain on your windshield at once that you can’t see momentarily.
With about 20 minutes to go, I had my eye on the barf bags about 20 feet away from me, and I tried my darnedest not to think about that day during my 50th birthday trip to Australia, on the ferry from Brisbane to Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef, which turned from an advertised “nice cruise on a catamaran to Heron Island” to a “5-vomit-bag ride from hell.”
Seriously, if this gig would have been (literally) two more minutes, I don’t think it would have ended as well as it did. With that said, once we started pulling into the port at Martha’s Vineyard, it was calm again with a quintessential New England scene with harbor-side houses and boats in the marina, complete with seagull cameos.
TRANSPORTATION TO MY HOTEL
I had a hard time getting a ride to my hotel, some of which was my propensity to find the cheapest way there that I could. I checked the local buses, and even walked to one corner where I saw two go by, but once I got there, no other ones came. From what I could tell of a quick scan of their rates, it would have been a $5.60 fare to Edgartown, where I was going.
I called two of the three taxi companies that came up on my phone, and neither one of them sounded overly excited about picking me up, and 18-20 minutes was the shortest wait time I could expect.
I tried Uber, which offered me only a UberLUX option (“Stylish, high-end cars for special occasions”) for $37.95. This was for an 11-mile ride to Edgartown, the next town over, mind you.
I walked back to the wharf, and shortly after getting there, a taxi drove up. It was an 8- to 10-seating van, but since I was the only one standing there and I had flagged him down, he stopped.
By the accent when he asked me where I was going, and one other thing he uttered while en route (to check in with the taxi dispatcher to communicate his fare and destination) I could tell he was British. He was kind of hot, but he had a pack of cigarettes on his console. At least the van didn’t smell like an ashtray, though.
I was thinking, “Well if Uber was $37.95, this is probably going to be $50,” and then in the ironies of all ironies, at least to me, we got behind the very bus I wanted to catch and followed it all the way to Edgartown.
I perseverated the whole way thinking how a $5 ride was that close to me the entire way, but I was paying 10 times that amount. Needless to say, I was completely taken aback when the taxi driver said when he let me out, “That’ll be $20.”
THE HARBORSIDE INN
The Harborside Inn is a multi-building conglomeration, and my room was the Captain Abel room. Once I arrived in it, the air-conditioning wouldn’t come on, and when I called the front desk about it, the phone kept shorting in and out.
When I could finally talk to her and explained about the air-conditioning, she said she would send someone up to look at it.
I said, “I would really like to just move to another room if you have one. This is a special trip for me, and this place is $350 a night. I want everything to be nice.”
“Of course, Mr. Martin,” she said. “Please come back to the front desk and we’ll take care of it.”
She upgraded me to a room with a harbor view and a private balcony in the Ripley House, whose history is this:
Capt. Tristram P. Ripley House was the show place of its day when built about 1850, the year the captain married Eliza M. Mayhew, “the beauty of her day.” He was master of such famous whalers as Champion, Charles W. Morgan, Young Phoenix and Mercury. Eliza went with him on several voyages. When he retired, the captain went into the wood and coal business with his neighbor, Capt. Alexander Fisher. In the 1900s, the house was converted to an inn, being run under several names, one being the Studley House, Capt. George H. Studley, innkeeper.
MORE WRITING
Ecstatic with the internet connection here, two or three hours just flew by while I wrote for my blog and enjoyed a few cocktails.
I don’t know if I’m just out of practice, or if it was always this time-intensive writing blog entries, but at one point I did stop and wonder, “How in the world did I have a blog entry for every day of my life for 10 years between January 12, 2004 and January 12, 2014.”
As a complete aside: I just re-read that January 12, 2014 entry about the writing, the challenges, and the joys of that 10-year period, about which I surmised: “It was a wild—and at times difficult—ride, but like all things involving discipline, challenges, and time, I feel a real sense of accomplishment having done it.”
I went to brush my teeth and the toothpaste tube reminded me of Bob and I posted this on Facebook:
middle just now to remind me of somebody who does it that way, because he’s not here and I miss him. ❤️
DINNER
At about 7:30, I headed out to check out some place to have dinner. I knew I wanted seafood and a quick Google search presented 3 places very close by, two of which had a $$$$ designator and one of which had a $$$ designator. Guess which one I chose.
At the Atlantic Fish & Chop House, I asked about the lobster and chose the 1-lb one over the 2-lb one. I didn’t want any sides, and it came with fresh bread, which I had to wait for a little longer than I would preferred, but it was because it was in the oven, still cooking.
There were three kinds of bread, which came with butter and an Kalamata olive and olive oil spread that was delicious.
After dinner, I strolled around the area and came across an ice cream shop, and I was both surprised and pleased that it was open as late as it was and that my two-scoop cone of maple walnut was almost half the price of the one I’d had last night in Nantucket.
60th birthday trip day 2: On Nantucket Island
~Saturday, October 7, 2017~ I was up at 7:30, and when I opened my door to head out to breakfast, I saw something I’d never pictured in the many times I’d daydreamed about this trip since booking it in June. It was foggy as hell.
MOM’S BREAKFAST
“Mom’s Breakfast” is included each morning at The Nantucket Inn. When I got to the entrance of the dining area, there was a couple in front of me, and the woman read this sign out loud to her husband:
Then she looked at him and asked, “Does that mean we need to wait to be seated?” Not really sure what tripped her up, as I found the message pretty straight forward.
“Mom’s Breakfast” was quite the spread. There were several stations:
- One of potatoes, corned beef hash, bacon, sausage, pancakes, and scrambled eggs.
- One with yogurt and fresh fruit.
- One with all kinds of breads including English muffins, mini-bagels, 3 different kinds of breads for toasting, and several different kinds of pastries and muffins.
- A waffle station with some whipped topping for them and 3 different kinds of warm syrups.
- One with cranberry and orange juice.
Here are a couple of them:
I had this full plate, with a side order of toast, and then I had some of the fresh fruit for “dessert” instead of the pastries.
During my time in the dining area, I noted these two snippets of separate conversations:
- A lady ran into another lady she apparently hadn’t seen in quite a while, and perhaps had even met here during a previous vacation.
First lady: I remember you! It’s been a long time. I even remember that you have three kids, three girls.
Second lady: “Actually, I have two now. I lost one.” - “You can’t just sit there and watch someone clean your house when you feel like doing it yourself.”
GETTING A WORKOUT IN
At 1:30, I forced myself to go to the hotel’s “Exercise Room,” which consisted of one treadmill, two elliptical machines, and one stationary bicycle, along with some free weights and one of those all-in-one strength training machines.
A man came in after I was in there for about 10 minutes, and he turned on the TV. He was easily drawn in to whatever show was on, which looked like some kind of documentary. I was glad I had my earbuds with me and my music was loud enough that I didn’t hear a single word of it.
I really didn’t think I would do 60 minutes of cardio while I was on vacation, but once I was on there and sweating full-hog, I just kept going, burning off 735 calories—probably only half the number of calories I had for breakfast.
Back at my place, I snapped these pictures of it:
A LITTLE WRITING
I spent a couple of hours writing Friday’s blog entry and reviewing my birthday-related blog posts I’m going to be making this week.
The wifi service is absolutely exasperating at this hotel. I’m not happy about it.
I actually had gone to the lobby area to write thinking the signal might be stronger there, but it wasn’t. I asked the registration person if there was possibly a better place to sit for a stronger signal, and she suggested an area where I had to move a wicked wicker whale, and a lamp and turn a chair sideways, in order to use the space.
Late in the afternoon, I googled “Gay Nantucket” and got some ridiculous search results, one of which said there were 10 gays bars on the island. When I clicked on that item, it listed one bar in Hyannis and another one in Connecticut, I think it was. Clickbait.
I decided to take the hotel’s free shuttle into town and check out three that actually looked like real places on the island, although from their descriptions all three of them looked like restaurant/bars rather than just bars.
MEETING JIM & DAWN
While waiting for the van to leave, a couple walked up who were also going into town in the van. The lady took a seat with me on the bench, and after a few minutes we started talking. We never stopped.
They were celebrating an anniversary here, and I filled them in on the reason for my trip.
By the time we got into town, we were best friends, and they invited me to go to a bar called the Starlight Theater & Cafe, where they were getting a drink before 8 o’clock dinner reservations they had elsewhere.
It was a cool place with an entrance to a little theater, which honestly, reminded me of a theater in San Francisco that played gay porn, and which very few people went to to actually watch any movie. It reminded me of it in looks only, though, not because it was nasty or looked nefarious in any way.
Jim treated us to drinks, and we got right back to conversation about everything and anything. Jim finished his beer before Dawn and I finished our cocktails, and I insisted on buying his second beer.
8:00 quickly rolled around, and since we had talked about gay bars—that I was going out to search for one and that Dawn had never been in one—I told Dawn that if I found one and they’d might want to meet me there, I’d text them where I was later.
Not surprisingly, she was game and gave me her number, which we had a good laugh over, because it contained several permutations of the number “69” in it. What are we, 12?
DINNER
I made my way to one of the establishments listed as a gay bar from a different Google search, and other than the hot waiter and only one or two same-sex couples (or at least two men and two women sitting together), it looked like any other bar to me. Plus, I’d characterize it a restaurant with a bar before I’d call it a bar.
It was called The Nautilus, and it was packed. I hadn’t even realized it was a Saturday night. It’s a good sign on vacation when you don’t remember (or care) what day it is.
There were no tables available, and in fact all of them were booked for the rest of the evening. The hostess invited me to sit at the bar, which was also full at the moment, so I just went and stood behind someone to try and order a drink.
A hunk-of-a-waiter saw me having no luck getting a seat and came over to say he was sorry the bar was full, but there would probably be a seat opening soon. I said okay and stepped outside to see how close another place on my list was, when said hunk-of-a-man came outside and said, “Come with me.”
A single seat had come open at the end of the bar, and he sat me there. I ordered a bourbon and soda, and the bartender said, “Bourbon on the rocks with just a splash of soda?”
“Perfect,” I said.
It took me less than a New England minute to decided on what I was going to get:
While I was waiting for that to arrive, that waiter who had seated me walked by and I said, “I just wanted to let you know that you saved a customer. I was looking for somewhere else to go when you came outside to get me, so thank you for that.”
“I’m just glad a seat come available so quickly for you,” he replied.
I ate the hell out of this dish, and I’d have to agree with this Yelp review of the plate, which I didn’t see until later: “The blue crab fried rice was out of this world as was the Tuna poke and chicken yakitori noodle bowl.”
Before leaving, I asked the waiter if he had a recommendation of a place to go where I could meet some friends, and he said, “I’d recommend Lola 41. There’s a bartender there named Germain, but he pronounces ‘German’; tell him I sent you.”
On the walk there, I came upon an ice cream shop and dropped in for a cone of maple walnut. I had a $5 bill out, sure that it would cover my 2-scoop cone, when she said, “That’ll be $7.50.”
I thought for that much money, I could at least get some free advice as to whether I was close to Lola 41, and she said, “Yep, just up the street on the right.”
REUNITING WITH JIM AND DAWN
It was indeed just a few more feet up the block, and I took a seat at the bar. I asked if Germain was there, and a big-gunned bartender said, “No, he’s not here tonight; he’s doing a wedding. I’m Tom, and this is Amy,” he said indicating the bartender now beside him. “You’ll do in a pinch,” I thought—about Tom, not Amy.
I ordered a bourbon and soda and texted Dawn to let her know where I was. They arrived shortly, and we shared our dinner stories over another cocktail or two.
Jim gave us the 15-minute warning for the 11:15 p.m. shuttle back to the hotel (at least I think it was the 11:15), and we settled our tabs and made our way to the Visitors Center on Federal Street for the pick-up.
Back at the hotel, we promptly sat at the bar and had a nightcap. So thirsty! 🙂
All in all, it was a fun, fun evening, and one that I hadn’t at all seen in my future earlier that afternoon. Funny aside: During the course of the evening Dawn confessed to the fact that she had seen me on my laptop in the lobby of the hotel earlier in the day (near the wicked wicker whale) and thought, “What a nerd.”
60th birthday trip day 1: On Nantucket Island
~Friday, October 6, 2017~ We were up at 4 a.m. and left the house at just after 4:30, leaving what I thought would be plenty of time to make my 6:10 flight.
When I got inside, the line for Delta check-in must have had close to 100 people in it. Walking toward it, I remembered that I had a first-class ticket, and I glanced over at the Sky Priority line, which had about 8 people in it. I wasn’t sure if you could you use that line if you weren’t one of their Medallion-level frequent fliers, but I decided to ask for forgiveness instead of permission, and got in that line.
When I got to the ticket agent, she didn’t say anything about it, and when I saw my ticket, I saw that I was ok:
Then I headed toward security, where I found the line astoundingly long. Without exaggeration, there were at least 500 people in the line that went along one wall of the terminal, reached a corner, then ran along that wall, then once it hit the other wall, it made a “U” and snaked back up along the original wall. And this was the line just to enter the security area, where once inside, it also snaked to get to the attendant to check you through to the actual scanning area.
At that point, it was about 5:10 and I knew I was going to miss my flight in this line. Then, I noticed that my ticket was marked “TSA Precheck,” and I thought, “Oh good. Maybe I don’t have to wait in this line.” I flagged someone down to ask, and she said, “Come with me,” and took me to the entrance for the pre-check folks, which had virtually no line.
THE FLIGHT
Once on board, the pilot came out to greet us and said, “I’m glad those of you who are here made it through that security line in time. I’ve been working at RDU for 9 years and I have never seen the line that long when it wasn’t the day before Thanksgiving or Christmas.”
On board, I was thrilled to find out that my 1A seat was by itself, as it was a smaller plane with one seat on one side of the aisle and two seats on the other. And then, bonus, no one ended up sitting in seats 1B and 1C. This was a relief, because I have a cold and I was afraid I’d be getting evil eyes if I started coughing during the flight.
There was a man behind me with 2 kids, who was incredibly annoying. He couldn’t sit still. Before we even left the gate, he got up three times to get something out of his carry on, which was stored in the overhead bin across from me. The third time, he pulled out some headphones that were bigger than his head. After sitting down for about 2 minutes, he got up again and went to the flight attendant area to get a paper towel, with which he started wildly cleaning the screen of his iPad. During the flight, he twice walked up to the flight attendant’s drink and snack cart to request one thing or another—after having already been served at his seat.
Just before landing, the flight attendant had already locked the bathroom door, and one of his 2 boys came up to use it. The flight attendant said, “Gotta make it quick, we’re about to land.” As soon as he started opening the door to come out, the other kid came to the bathroom. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. He came out, and the flight attendant locked the door again. Then their father came up again! She unlocked the door again, repeated her warning. OMFG. Can you say high-maintenance family?!?”
We landed about 15 minutes early, and my baggage came out fairly quickly. I never pay to check a bag, but I got two free bag checks with my ticket, so I took advantage of it.
THE BUS RIDE FROM BOSTON TO HYANNIS
At the ground transportation place where I was catching the Plymouth & Brockton bus to Hyannis at 9:15, the 8:15 bus was still there since it was 8:12, and when I showed the guy my ticket he said, “The tickets are good for any bus, so you can get on this one; there’s still room.”
I took the front seat on the passenger side, so right in front of the entrance door. We made 4 more stops within the airport and each time people started boarding, I coughed to signal that I had a cold, which kept everyone moving past the open seat next to me. At the last stop, the bus was starting to get full, so a man took the seat beside me anyway.
He was a bit of a bigger guy, not huge, but big enough that his right knee rubbed against mine when he said down. He immediately started rocking back and forth in his seat, and after a few minutes he said something that I couldn’t hear, but it turned out not to matter, because he wasn’t talking to me—but to himself. I thought for a moment that he might be “on the spectrum,” which would of course would have been fine.
To my surprise, after a while, he asked the bus driver, “Is Plymouth & Brockton hiring any drivers?”
To which the driver responded, “Do you have your CDL?”
“I don’t,” he replied, “but my wife does, and she’s looking for a job.”
The conversation turned into a long one that devolved into various aspects of working for Plymouth & Brockton including route selections, wages, vacation, and medical benefits.
THE FERRY FROM HYANNIS TO NANTUCKET
I alighted at the Hyannis stop, and the bus driver announced that there was a black courtesy phone inside the station to call the steamship authority for a free shuttle to the terminals. I picked up the phone, which rang 3 times and then went busy. I asked a lady in the nearby information desk about it, and she said, “Darn it. That phone is out of order again. Let me call them for you.”
The van picked me up, and after driving for a minute, the driver asked, “Are you on the 11:35 to Martha’s Vineyard?”
“No,” I said, “the 12:35 to Nantucket.”
“Oh, you must be on the Hy-Line Ferry. This shuttle is for the Steamship Authority boats only, and I’m not allowed to drop passengers off at the Hy-Line. You’ll have to get off at our stop and walk over to the Hy-Line Ferry area.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize there were two different places there. I’m happy to walk the rest of the way.”
“It’s not that far, really,” he said sounding a little guilty that he’d come across so harshly.
I said, “Oh, it’s no problem. I really am happy to walk.”
“Well, maybe I could cheat just this one time and drop you off over there,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said. And when he did, I said, “I appreciate you.”
Although I already had a printed reservation with a barcode on it that I assumed could be used to check in on the ferry, I went to the window at 11:10 to confirm with a human being.
“Oh, you’re on the 12:35 to Nantucket, but the 11:20 is getting ready to leave. Did you want to switch to that one?”
She made the switch, put a $7 credit on my charge card, because I had upgraded to the “Captain’s View” on that boat, but it wasn’t available on this boat, and I ran to the ferry. My ticket got rejected because she’d printed a 12:35 ticket instead of an 11:20 ticket, so I ran back to the window to exchange, where the clerk apologized profusely, because she knew it was about time to leave.
It was a very pleasant, one-hour ferry ride to Nantucket. There were several adorable dogs on board. Here’s one:
I resisted getting anything to eat at the little snack bar on board, including a several-minute debate with myself about a Bloody Mary.
ARRIVING ON NANTUCKET
It took longer than I would have preferred for me to get the free shuttle to The Nantucket Inn, as two people at the wharf gave me bad information about where I was to pick it up. Finally, after calling the hotel and getting accurate information, I made my way over to the correct place to pick it up.
Although check-in time wasn’t until 4 p.m., I was given my room right away. It’s a cute little room:
A WIN/WIN WALK
And after settling in, I walked one mile to a liquor store to buy some bourbon. On the way, I stopped into a little mart I passed to see if they had any seltzer water, which I’d pick up on the way back instead of at the liquor store (if they had it) to save me having to carry it for a mile-and-a-half.
A little further along the way, I passed this little park with fabulously green grass, and some cool statues. Here’s one:
The Canadian Club bottle that’s regularly $22 in Raleigh was $29 here, which was probably more than it should be, but less than I expected it would be. On the way back, I stopped and bought the seltzer water and some salty snacks—Cheetos and Cap Cod potato chips.
HAPPY HOUR WITH TOM AND HOLLY
After pouring myself a cocktail and eating some Cape Cod chips on Cape Cod:
Someone pointed out that I should have been drinking a Cape Cod, too. Wish I’d thought of it!
I went outside to a little courtyard in front of my room:
There I found Tom and Holly sitting and enjoying cocktails of their own. They were from Florida (still are) and had come up to Massachusetts to celebrate Tom’s mom turning 90 years old. Holly’d said, “Well, it’d be silly to go all the way and not enjoy a little time to ourselves, so we scheduled this part of the trip.”
They asked me if I was from around here, and I told them that I’d left Massachusetts 47 years ago, and that although I’d been back a few times for trips to Provincetown, I’d never been to Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, or Hyannis—not even during the first 13 years of my life when we lived in Fall River.
To which Tom said, “Ah. Fall River. Where Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother 40 whacks…” and we finished in unison, “And when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.”
I told them about the time my sister and I put my parents up in the Lizzy Borden Bed & Breakfast, which had wallpaper with little hatchets on it and served sugar cookies in the shape of a hatchet with the sugar crystals dyed red along the edge of the blade part of the cookie.
DINNER AT AK DIAMONDS
I had dinner at AK Diamonds, a two-tenths-of-a-mile walk from the inn and recommended by them. This is what I had, and the chowder was out of this world!
TAKING A MOMENT TO REFLECT ON MY GOOD FORTUNE TODAY
All of these things contributed to not only smooth, but unexpectedly ahead-of-schedule, travelling today:
- Having splurged on a first-class ticket back in June when I planned this trip.
- Arriving early in Boston, which allowed me to take a bus an hour earlier than the one I’d planned to take.
- The “huge heart” of the van driver who compromised his integrity and “cheated”—going against his company’s policies.
- Arriving at Hy-Line Ferry 10 minutes before the 11:20 ferry to Nantucket was leaving, allowing me to switch to that one from my originally schedule 12:35 one.
And these are non-related-to-traveling things that I’m grateful for, too:
- Being able to afford to take a “bucket list” trip like this.
- Having a husband who supports and cheers me on in everything in life, including taking this trip alone.
- Having a job that pays me when I’m not working, like today and next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
- Being successful in weighing less than I have in 5 years—something I’ve been working very hard at since February.
People to People Technical Communications Professional Delegation to China—Day 12
I met Sherry, Ann, Paula, Kathy, Jeanne and Kirsten at 8:30 for the hotel breakfast buffet. We broke bread together for the last time. And then, off to my ride:
I left Shanghai tomorrow and arrived today in Chicago, ten minutes after I left. Actually, we left Shanghai at 4:05 PM on 10/31/08 and arrived in Chicago at 4:15 PM on 10/31/08. Cue up Cher: If I could turn back time…
I had an aisle seat on the way back, and to the right of me an Indian couple occupied the middle and window seat. She was in her sari and he was in his turban. As soon as I sat down I said to them, “Feel free to wake me up if I’m asleep whenever you need to get out. I won’t mind at all. Just nudge me.”
They thanked me, and the man told me he was “a heart patient,” and so he’d need to get up at least once every four hours to allow some circulation in his legs. Then he said to his wife, who was in the window seat, “Why don’t you let him have that seat?”
“That’s okay,” I said, “Actually, I’d like to keep my aisle seat. I have a bum knee, and I want to be able to stretch it out in the aisle if I need to,” and then added, “This getting old stuff is a bitch.” To which he replied, “It sure is.” Right before we rolled back, he got up and took an aisle seat that was open in the middle section of the plane; in fact, it was right next to Paula from our delegation.
So, an aisle seat with an empty seat between me and the lady in the window seat now for our twelve-hour flight. Sweeeet. I noticed that she was reading Kite Runner, and I said to her, “That is one of my all-time favorite books.” She said she was loving it, and asked me if I’d read the author’s next book, about which I’d heard, but hadn’t read. “It’s even better than this one,” she said. “You must read it.”
At the very beginning of the flight, for between an hour and an hour-and-a-half straight, we had severe turbulence. I’m talking the kind of turbulence that has the food cart rolling around in the galley area, and at one point shaking so much that a huge bottle of water tipped out of an ice bucket and rolled on the floor, while the flight attendants could do nothing but sit in their seats displaying a face that said, “We experience this all the time. It’s not big deal. I’m totally calm, as all of you should be.” Yeah, right.
My final bilingual drink on the plane:
In spite of that precarious beginning, however, after traveling over 6,000 miles, we had the most incredibly smooth touchdown ever.
| Most ridiculous thing overheard at O’HARE:
Lady to perfect stranger: “I’ve been traveling since midnight my time.” |
Uh, your time? Do you own a time zone? Do we know where or when you started your trip? Thanks so much for your sentence with no meaning.
Immigration was a breeze. In fact I saw three, count them, three, immigration officers actually smile, and the one who processed me said nodding at my t-shirt, “Grammar police. What’s that all about?”
After explaining it, he said, “Well, I’d like to think my grammar is good.” I was impressed that he even cared.
After a ridiculously long wait for our luggage, I retrieved my checked-in bag even though it was checked through to Raleigh-Durham, took it through customs, and then re-checked it without having to go through any kind of line.
After changing terminals, and unfortunately having to go through the carry-on security line again, I got to the top of the escalators by my gate to face a food court. I walked in there to see if there was a place selling “Chicago-style” hot dogs. One of the food stores in there was a Chinese food place, and I said, “Ugh,” and veered away from it.
I ended up having a sesame seed bagel instead, and then went whoring for an outlet, which turned out to be an incredibly fruitless search. There were some outlets here and there that looked like outlets, but when you got close to them they were some weird twisted thing that didn’t except regular plugs. I had to double check to make sure I was in America. The adapters and converters are all packed away.
I found a very inconvenient one by a currency exchange booth, and sat on the floor to recharge my laptop. I think my battery must be dying. All during this trip, including on the plane on the way back, my battery slowly drains as I’m using it to between 50% and 55% power left, and then just like that (
) it drops down to 4% in the red zone, displays the message that power is low, to save and power off, and then when I hit shutdown, right before Windows completes closing, it automatically goes into hibernation mode.
My flight from Chicago to Raleigh-Durham was uneventful, if you ignore the four people that came on the plane at the very last minute, who were dressed up for Halloween in bicyclist outfits (one complete with the Lycra shorts and a helmet), and spoke so damn loud the whole way back that I could hear every word of their conversations from five or six rows ahead of them. Thank god for iPods and earbuds.
I had a window seat, 13A (which I chose way back when I booked my flight) and the two women who sat in the middle and aisle seats talked to each other the whole way back.
I was falling asleep, and at one point, I put my seat back, only to have it violently shaken by the guy behind me, who said (after the shaking), “I’m sorry, but my legs are too long for you to put your seat back.”
I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. In some way it smacks of, “My poor planning has become your emergency.” I mean would it be acceptable if an obese person sitting next to me said, as his or her girth was taking up half my seat, “I’m sorry. I’m too fat for you to have your entire seat.” I’m thinking this guy should ask for a seat just behind the bulkhead when he travels rather than denying me the amenities that come with the ticket I paid for.
I landed to the newly opened, in fact opened since I left, “Terminal 2.” While I waited for Joe outside baggage claim, a minivan pulled up, out of which two kids came running toward their grandparents, who were just to the right of me. The boy had a bag of Halloween candy, and when he showed it to grandpa, grandpa grabbed it and ran with it, with the grandson chasing after him. I watched, thinking, “I would love to have a piece of that candy.”
After they got the grandparents’ bags in the car, and the grandparents were in, right before closing the door, the little boy ran over to me, opened his bag, and said, “Would you like a piece of candy?”
“I sure would!” I said, and then, “What do you have in there? Ah, Milk Duds. I love those! Okay to take one of them?”
“Sure!” he said, and I responded with, “Thanks, buddy. You’re very kind. Happy Halloween.”
Joe and I headed right to Flex, where it was Costume Contest Night. After that, we made a stop at Legends, and then onto IHOP, with Henry, for a ridiculously late/early breakfast. I had Pigs-in-a-Blanket, and the pancakes were pumpkin-flavored. Killer!
People to People Technical Communications Professional Delegation to China—Day 11
Today was our last "professional day" on the trip, and after the usual breakfast buffet, which I ate gloriously alone today, we were off to our morning visit with the Strategic Delivery Organization, Greater China, Accenture, where our Meeting Agenda noted at the bottom: "The washroom at the meeting venue is western style with toilet paper available."
This is the company that one of our delegates, Ann Backhaus—who’s one of my favorite delegates—works for. This meeting was in a somewhat cramped conference room, but we managed just fine.
Accenture is quite famous in China, perhaps globally. It’s one of the "Big 5" in the global consulting industry. In China, they have more than 3000 employees, specializing in four areas: Consulting, Outsourcing, Solutions, and Technical Support.
Our hosts were very gracious, and all three of them, though Chinese, introduced themselves with English names—Simon, Jeff, and Robert. All three were in senior positions in the company.
Simon has about 20 years in I/T and software development. He worked for about two years at IBM in a consulting department. He’s been an executive at Accenture for about a year now.
Robert works in the technology consulting area. His group specializes in solving some of the issues currently faced by China CEOs. He graduated from University of Maryland at College Park. He has worked for EDS, AT&T, Bell Atlantic, and Freddie Mac. Of course, with the recent global financial meltdown led by the U.S., and with Freddie Mac recently taken over by the U.S. government, everyone groan-laughed at the mere mention of it. Someone in our delegation said, "So you’re the one!" Laughter all around.
Jeff was the junior manager in terms of time at Accenture, starting about six months ago. Before that he worked for Unisys on their outsourcing team. He’s a local person, born in Shanghai, lives in Shanghai, and spends his vacations in Shanghai. His specialty area is outsourcing.
The meeting started off with Simon asking us two questions: (1) For how many of us was this our first trip to China, and (2) What have our impressions been of China during our time here? As usual with our group, there was no shortage of people wanting to answer the questions. 🙂
Then we asked them some questions:
Jenny: As businessmen in China, what is your main source of business information?
Linda: When you write plans, proposals, and policies and procedures, here in your office, who does that, and what is their background?
Debbie: Do you get involved with RFPs, and if so, how does that work?
We talked about other topics and observations about the similarities and differences in our cultures:
- China’s "learning from a master" culture.
- How the long history affects the rate of change in China.
- Engaging employees—both their minds and their hearts.
- "Creative" and "people" work versus "logical" and "machine" work.
- What today’s employees are looking for—not just the salary, but the complete package including the benefits and the company’s culture.
- What hiring managers are looking for in potential employees, and how to retain employees once they’re hired.
- Hiring professional coaches for executives.
- The best way to train, leading to a discussion on visual communication, and "culturally loaded icons." 🙂
- A copyright protection discussion, which mostly centered around Microsoft’s actions against piracy of its software in China. It’s estimated that 50-60% of its software is pirated. It has reacted by launching an anti-piracy tool targeting Chinese computer users to ensure they buy genuine software.
At about 20 minutes into the meeting, Jeff announced that free wireless was available in the room, and gave us the SSID and key.
Though I was the minute-taker for this meeting, I did take a few minutes "in the background" to send my final LiveJournal updates to my friend Casey for posting—which really took a load off my mind—as I wanted desperately to post them before leaving, which meant I would have had to either break down and pay the $20 (rip off) that our hotel wanted for a 24-hour period of Internet access, or try one of the Starbucks nearby to see if they offered access cheaper than that.
Casey, thanks again, a million, for helping me out during this trip!
As usual, we concluded our meeting with a certificate presentation to our hosts. Here’s Linda presenting to Simon:
We met our guests—meaning the son, daughter, and spouses of the delegates, who are always having "culture days" with the local tour guides—for lunch, and invited our Accenture hosts along, too. We met at Tai Lake Boat Cuisine Restaurant, and had our by now usual family style Chinese food. Lazy Susan. Beer and soft drinks.
I asked the guests if on the days they met us for lunch, which I think was only two days of the trip, or maybe three, if it was the highlight of their day. No one said no. But, then again, no one really said yes—without sarcasm anyway.
Set straight that it really isn’t all about us, we bid our guests and the Accenture folks adieu, and we set off to our afternoon meeting, which was with HP-China, specifically their Global Delivery China Center (GDCC) in Pudong.
Surprisingly, to me at least, this was the most awkward visit of all of our visits. The room was quite stark, and it was set up theater style—just rows of chair facing a screen, on which was projected a couple of PowerPoint slide presentations. All of our venues up until then had been chairs at desks, in nice conference rooms, often with an audio system so we could hear each other better, and usually with our names in placards on the tables.
The guy that was designated as our host, whose name was Tim, was quite hard to understand, and he gave us a brief welcome in the small auditorium we were in, and then took us into the hall, where he showed us the history of the GDCC from standalone wall boards with all of the information printed on it. He basically would take a moment to read a date-associated blurb (which we all did along with him, as it was in both Chinese and English), and then he would tell us what it said.
After that, we took a short tour of the first floor of the building we were in, where on our first stop, we peered into a room full of machines, which was a server farm. Next, we moved into a big room cordoned off in quadrants where the workers sat at their desks, mostly at laptops. It was a little warm in there, but no where near like the other rooms we’ve seen workers in. I did note one person with a jacket on, however.
After walking around the room, Tim said, "Basically in this complex, we have four building, each with three floors that all look like this one," ending the tour.
We returned to the conference room, where we had a brief welcome and introduction from a VP and General Manager, who actually "got" technical communication. It was a welcome anomaly on our trip so far.
Next Tim gave us a presentation that started off with some interesting facts about their organization, including that 24% of their employees have Master’s degrees and 0.8 have PhDs. He then whipped through about 15 slides detailing the 13 industries they engage in, and each of those had several bullet points listing on the left side of the slide, their capabilities and skills in that industry, and their applications in bullet points on the right side of the slides. The 13 industries are:
- Communication, Media, and Entertainment
- Healthcare and Life Science
- Consumer Industry & Retail
- Energy
- Financial Services
- Manufacturing
- Transportation
- Government
- SAP Service & Solution
- Testing Service & Solutions
- Standard Service Architecture
- BTO-based Service
- BQS (Business Quality Service) & Solutions
I’ll spare you (and me) the capabilities and applications of each.
Next, we had a very stilted conversation with the manager of their Technical Competence Center, during which we eventually ascertained that his group was so far up in the design and development cycle that they had no interaction, or understanding apparently, of the documentation used to communicate with end-users, which is what we do. Things that make you go, Hmmmm.
After he left, we were left alone with the three technical writers that work at this location in China HP, and only then did we have a very fruitful conversation. The team consisted of two Chinese women and one "Western white boy" named Terry.
Here I am at the entrance of the building under a sign welcoming us, which you can’t read in the photo. It was snapped as we were leaving:
After about an hour to freshen up after returning to the hotel from our final meetings, we headed out to Yat’s Restaurant for our farewell dinner. From this restaurant, we had a great night view of Pudong, and could actually see it in spite of it still raining. As it turned out, it rained the entire four days we were in Shanghai.
This dinner turned out to be very, very nice, even though for me, it was my least favorite meal. It was more of what I’d call a "high end" restaurant, and a good portion of the dishes involved fish, which I didn’t want to eat so close to our long travel day home. A nice surprise was that at the end of the meal they brought out this unbelievably huge birthday cake for Vaughnea, as tomorrow is her birthday.
We sang happy birthday to her, and then Shawn taught us the Chinese version of Happy Birthday. So, all of us sang Happy Birthday again in Chinese. Then Nadine, who’s French and joined the delegation from Belgium, sang Happy Birthday in French, for which in addition to myself, the Toronto contingent joined in. Then, someone knew Happy Birthday in German, and they sang that. And finally, even though none of us were Spanish or Mexican-American, a few people eked out Happy Birthday in Spanish. It was all quite fun, and Vaughnea absolutely loved it.
The staff cut the first piece of cake, and it was so inordinately large that we made them give it to Shawn, or National Guide, and all around great guy, as he usually didn’t eat with us, and when he did, he ate like a bird.
We had a touching round of thanks to Shawn, who everyone couldn’t say enough good things about. When taunted for a speech he said, "I’m not going to say a lot of mushy stuff, because I don’t want you to think, ‘Yeah, he says that to all of the delegations,’ but this group really was different in that most of the delegations that I work consist of a majority of men, but this group was mostly women. And most groups don’t tease their guide mercilessly, so that’s been a lot of fun." He said it almost with a little sarcasm, but you could tell that he had enjoyed that part of our time together.
Linda thanked him profusely, and offered the floor for others and several people said very nice things to him. I liked Vaughnea’s words, where were to the effect of, "Thank you for your patience, for your wisdom, for your sense of humor, and for being you." Tell it, sistah!
Our farewell dinner:
All the way back to the hotel, I went back and forth about going out tonight. I have been talking about going to a gay bar the entire trip, though Shanghai was the place that I really had intended to do it, as an IBM colleague of mine had been here a few years ago, and had recommended a bar that he’d actually been to and said was nice, as well as safe.
I was using the excuse of it raining yet again as a good reason not to go, when I knew darn well it was the idea of taking a taxi, which I hate, and the only thing worse being, taking a taxi to a place you’ve never been before, and particularly on top of that, doing so not being able to speak the language.
After finally "sucking it up" and "just doing it," I set out. After a few minutes wait in a short line, the bellman called up the next cab and asked me where I was going. I handed him the address, written in Chinese for me on Tuesday by Leo and the concierge, and the bellman told the address in Chinese to the cabbie.
The cab ride was incredibly long, and the only thing that kept me from not starting to get very worried was that Leo had told me that it should be about 21 yuan to get there, which is between $3.00 and $4.00. I’m quite sure this cab ride would have been between $50 and $100 in the States. It was so far, but I kept watching the meter, and when it hit 23 yuan, the driver pulled to a stop.
And then the panic started as he pointed around and asked me a question, which of course I understood not one word of. I looked around where we were and we were not at the front door of a place called Eddy’s, which was the name of the bar I was going to. He veered the taxi off the road into this area that wasn’t a parking lot, but sort of an island between two roads that met in a V, and said something else.
I started getting this sick feeling, and I thought, "If I don’t see this bar before I get out of this taxi, I’m just going to have him take me back to the hotel. This is not the kind of place that I’m going to go looking down side streets or back alleys, which are not unusual locations for gay bars even in a country where they’re not so frowned against."
I got out the piece of paper that was written in Chinese that the bellman had read to the cabbie, but that he hadn’t seen, and I handed it to him. He was so gracious. He looked at what was written, focusing on the 1187 street address I think, and looked all around for me. And then he made a noise of recognition and pointed over to the second business on the right down one of the streets meeting there in that "V" intersection, to a red, neon light in the window that said, "Eddy’s." Thank goodness. I Xie-Xied him profusely, gave him 30 yuan, and walked over to the bar.
It was a dimly lit quaint little bar, not very big at all in terms of square feet, and cool music playing, but actually a little too loudly for my taste. I did what I do in American bars, which is to say, stood along the wall taking in the scene and not talking to anyone. Though it was a small bar, they had two or three guys walking around taking your drink order if you preferred that to going up to the bar, which was in the center, with three sides being seating, and one side containing bottles on display.
I said, "A beer, please," when one of them asked me if I wanted anything.
"Will [some Chinese beer name I couldn’t discern, of course] be okay?" he asked.
"That’d be great," I said, having no idea what kind of beer that was.
"30 yuan," he said when he returned.
I moved around to three or four spots on the bar, checking out the scene. I’d say there were about 30 people in the place, maybe 8-10 westerners, and four ladies, whom I assume were Lesbians, but only because they were in a gay bar, not because they "looked like" Lesbians, whatever Lesbians look like, especially in China.
While I stood in one spot, these two guys came in and they came and stood next to me. One was a white guy, and the other a Chinese guy. The white guy said hello to me, and I just stuck out my hand and said, "Hi, I’m John."
"I’m Jack," he said, "And this is Dean." Jack was from Singapore and flying back tomorrow. Dean was very outgoing, and as it turned out, he knew a lot of the people in that bar, as several came up and said hello to him.
One was a cute, Chinese guy, whom Dean introduced to Jack and me as Carter. We talked for about an hour. He was a young kid, still in university, in a pre-MBA program. He’s never been to the States, but would like to move to NYC next year. His English was quite good, but we were often standing right under the speaker, so I had to ask him to repeat things now and again.
He told me that I looked like the actor on The King of Queens, which of course I’ve never seen. He couldn’t remember his acting name. Anyway, he said that he thought that the actor was very handsome, which was very sweet. (Turns out it was Kevin James.)
He asked me how old I was, and I when I said 51, he said, "No way. You look 35." Who could not like this kid? 🙂 He asked me how old I thought he was, and I said, "Oh my god, you’re just a kid. You can’t be more than 21 or 22."
"21," he responded making a very brief facial expression that said, "I’m not that old!" as if 21 or 22 was way off and so much older than he actually was. Ah, youth.
I asked him if this bar had ever been raided or if there is ever any trouble with the police here. He assured me that there wasn’t, as the bar pays the government to make sure it stays that way. Pays them monthly.
I was glad to have ventured out on my last night in China to end up having a little time with people like me. Gay people all over the world having similar experiences. Carter talked about not being out in his life, his wanted to be assured that he can "pass as straight," and his plans to tell his family only after he has graduated, has a job, and his own place to live.
There’s always that fear of being disowned, which is most likely heightened in China due to the one birth rule. After all, you know the parents who have been lucky enough to have their male offspring, are probably not going to take to well to the fact that their son is probably not going to produce the heirs they want, and need, to perpetuate the family name.
People to People Technical Communications Professional Delegation to China—Day 10
Our wake-up call was at 7:30 today, and this was the first time on this trip that I was in an incredibly deep sleep when my phone rang.
The breakfast buffet in this hotel, Le Royal Meridien, is unfreakingbelievable. I started off with twice slices of toast, eggs Benedict with a hard-boiled, instead of soft-boiled egg, a slice of bacon and some coffee.
After some watermelon and fresh pineapple, I still wanted something sweet, and scouring over by the waffle and pancake stand, I saw beside the peanut butter, a bowl marked dulce de leche. I took two teaspoons of the sinfully delicious looking and tasting goo, and spread it on a croissant. OMFG.
On the way down to the lobby, the background music in the elevator sounded like a babbling brook. When I first heard it, I thought, “Oh no. My stomach is not making that noise.” Discussing it once we all got in the lobby, every person who noticed that sound thought it was their stomach. How funny. I guess knowing you might have to use a “Chinese toilet” really makes you stay in tune with your body.
Today made three-for-three with regards to our “cultural days” in each city being overcast and rainy. What a bummer. It rained the entire day, more some times than others, and getting dark rather early because of it.
Our morning was spent at the Shanghai Museum. Here I am at the entrance:
The museum used to cost to get in, but now it’s free. As you can see by the lines, it’s quite the popular place:
Might I suggest, “Visitors 70 and over” instead? I’m just saying…
There was a good diversity of people visiting the museum today—from the aforementioned elders, to white people, to this black cowboy, who was a part of a group of very, very dark-skinned people presumably from somewhere in Africa:
I’m just going to shake my head with regards to the bathroom situation. This sign was on the back of the door to the stall in the men’s room. And yes, this means toilet paper used for that. Men don’t use toilet paper for the other thing. It’s just hard to understand. And this was a “Western toilet,” not a “Chinese toilet.”
There were four floors of exhibit halls in the museum, and we were provided with recording devices in English, on which we punched a code shown at a particular piece to hear its history. Here I am listening to the background on these boats:
It’s me again… this time communing with the coins:
Yep. Me again. Hanging out with the old guys:
A couple other of my favorite piecesa “belt tail piece with dragon design” made out of jade and a ceramic “Heavenly Guardian” statue:
On the bus ride from the Shanghai Museum to the silk rug factory that was next on our agenda, I read these headlines over the shoulder of Richard (of Richard and Nadine) in the paper that he was reading in the seat in front of me:
At the Shanghai General Silk Rug Factory, we started off with a tour of the factory during which our guide showed us how rugs are made from start to finish. And it all starts with the moth cocoons, from which the silk is derived:
Nothing up my sleeve… presto… silk!
Next, our guide explained a few things about a rug that a lady from Los Gatos, CA ordered a few months ago, on which the lady in this next picture is working:
This young lady has 6 years experience making rugs, and she’s considered an expert. Even as an expert, and working eight ours per day, with 10 minutes break every hour to give her eyesight a break, she hooks only five rows of this rug per day. At that rate it will take her eighteen months to finish this 6 foot-by-8 foot rug.
The lady who ordered it is an older lady, in her seventies, and she said that she couldn’t wait that long for a rug, so the factory said they would put another girl on it; that is, add a shift and have it done in nine months—to which the lady agreed.
The guide asked our group what we thought a rug like that might cost. Someone said, “$10,000,” and the guide said, “Sold! If you’d give that much.” It’s going for right at about $6,000.
Of course, the tour ended up in the retail showroom of the place, in which several people were hounded until they purchased a rug. I picked up one that caught my eye, and it was small, something like 3 feet-by-1 feet, and the price tag said 3300 yuan (about $532). “Specially for you, 20% off, so 2640 yuan (about $425). I don’t think so…
As far as I noted, Kirsten, Debbie, and Jenny and Bob bought a rug. Kirsten and Jenny got these little squares, maybe 1-foot by 1-foot for $320, and Jenny and Bob got a bigger one, I’m guessing in the $1000-$2000 range.
I really liked this one with the pandas on it. This one probably cost two- or three-thousand dollars, if not more:
Right across the breezeway from the silk factory, we had lunch at Dim Sum Restaurant, which was very good. Chinese food. Lazy Susan. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
After lunch a couple of people stopped in on the second floor of the silk factory, where they were making cashmere items, mostly sweaters. There was a window through which you could see the workers making the items. They were all standing up at large, loom-like machines working away.
For a reason not understood by me, at least, in the hallway of this area, there were three goats (not alive) grazing in some grass (not real). I began to sing, “High on hill, was a lonely goat herd, yodel-odel-odel-odel-ey-eeh-ho…”
We made a quick stop at The Bund, which most people in our delegation had heard of, though I hadn’t. That could be because I did zero reading about China before I came. Things that make you go, “Hmmmm.”
I’m sure the view from this place would be phenomenal if it weren’t as incredibly foggy as it was during the short fifteen minutes or so we were there. However, from this point, you can see across the water, what’s called Pu Dong. Pu Dong is the financial center of Shanghai, which is the financial center of China. So, Pu Dong is to Shanghai what Manhattan is to New York City.
Pu Dong is also where we will be visiting the Hewlett-Packard office that we’re visiting tomorrow afternoon as part of our professional day. HP is also the company our leader, Linda, works outin the United States, of course. Here’s a picture of Pu Dong on the other side of the water:
Right on the corner near The Bund is the famous Peace Hotel—also a place of which I’d never heard.
A few other interesting buildings viewed from The Bund:
Our next stop was at Yu Garden, which was beautiful in the misty, and sometimes harder, rain. This used to be a private mansion, and the man built this garden for his mother and his family. However his mother didn’t live long enough to see it finished. Here are some shots from within:
I really like that dragon’s tail “slithering” along the top of the wall.
This tree was in one of the squares in the shopping bazaar we had about 45 minutes in after strolling through the garden:
I finished shopping in about ten minutes, and treated myself to a Dairy Queen (yes, our Dairy Queens!) small vanilla cone 5 yuan—about $.80. Cheap.
Dinner was on our own tonight, and I walked through a square near our hotel, during which I was three times offered sexonce with a massage, once without, and once by a woman who actually touched my stomach and said, “Mister, you lonely?”
Uh… no.
I made my way to a Pizza Hut, where I used their 3-step menu-pointing procedure to order my dinner: (1) Put to either Pan Pizza, Think Crust Pizza, or Stuffed Crust Pizza. (2) Point to the size 9, 10, 11, or 12. (3) Point to the variety of pizza; I chose the one called “American Style,” which had a picture of a well-populated pepperoni pizza.
“That’ll be 15 minutes,” she said.
It arrived in 10 minutes, and I guess most of the pepperoni population had moved to the suburbs. There were about three pieces on my 9-inch pizza. At any rate, it was freaking delicious, and I ate the whole thing, minus the crusts. I got a Pepsi Cola with it, and my total bill was 68 yuan (about $11.00).
A couple of things were interesting about this dining experience:
- When I ordered, she said, “That’s it? Just pizza?” As I waited for my pizza to arrive, I watched the other tables, and all of them had at least two, and most three, other dishes that they bought in addition to their pizza. A lot of them were Chinese things that you’d never see on an American Pizza Hut table. They involved noddles and soups and shrimp… stuff like that.
- They put an itemized receipt in this little box that was affixed under each table to hold it. As each item was delivered to the table, they pulled the receipt out and marked a line through that item indicating that it has been served. My 12 yuan Pepsi got marked out right away, and when the pizza arrived, a line went through that 56 yuan item.
- I was unsure if they tip here, or if it’s included in the price of the food. All of my food on this trip until now has been provided by People to People, except my outing to McDonald’s the other night, where of course I didn’t tip. I ended up leaving a tip here, something between 10% and 15%, just in case.
On the way back from dinner, I stopped into the Hershey’s store, where I just couldn’t bring myself to pay $10 for a package of six thin, plain, milk-chocolate Hershey bars.
Beyond the Hershey’s store, but before my hotel, was a Starbucks. I stepped in, just to see if they had wireless access. Normally, I’d never pay for access, but if they did have it, it would have had to have been cheaper than what the hotel is charging, so I would have considered using it. I didn’t see anyone with laptops in there.
There was another exit to the place, and in taking it, I found myself in a multi-level mall. I walked around just to see what kind of stores they had, and when I reached the third floor, I looked up from the escalators to see that there were seven stories in all. Excessive.
At the top of the escalator, where I had decided I would just turn around and head back down, there was a bookstore. I took a stroll through there. 98% of the books were in Chinese, but there were two bookshelves whose label said, “Imported Books,” so I took a quick gander through them.
One of them was “The World is Flat,” which had been mentioned in one of our professional meetings this trip, and which I’d heard of. There was also Covey’s “8th Habit,” and of all things, a book by coach Dean Smith, the former basketball coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Strange.
I had planned to go to Eddy’s tonight, but the weather was so nasty, and I’d heard someone say that it was going to be impossible to get a taxi tonight, presumably because everybody would be using them, so I decided to stay in.
I finished up another batch of post cards, for which the front desk charged me a dollar a stamp instead of the fifty-cents they were in Guilin. Rip off. I hate when hotels do that shit. And that’s what this hotel is doing with Internet access, too. Not only is it not free, it’s outrageous. It’s 5.25 yuan for each minute for the first 20 minutes, and then it’s 1 yuan an hour after that, up to 24 hours. So, it basically comes out to just under 20 bucks a day for access. Highway robbery.
After that I was going to start right in on my blog for today, but I decided to reward myself with a break and flipped on the TV. A movie was on that caught my attention for two reasons: (1) the main character on screen when I turned it on had just said that he was an obituary editor, and (2) the actor playing that character was Jude Law. Yummy.
As the movie went on, Julia Roberts came into it, and then it started seeming familiar to me. Within a few more minutes, I realized that I’d seen it before, but of course I couldn’t remember the name of it, but I watched it to the end.
After that, I devised this blog entry, finishing at about 1:00AM. Tired.
People to People Technical Communications Professional Delegation to China—Day 9
Our wake-up call was at 6:30 this morning, and our bags had to be outside the door by 7:00. I got mine out at 7:10, and then went down to breakfast where I joined Nadine and Richard, and Paula joined us a few minutes later.
While I was getting some fruit, this man next to me missed putting the top of a water container back on securely, and it fell crashing to the floor taking a coffee cup with it. It made an absolute racket, and the whole place looked over. Glad it wasn’t me.
We left the hotel at a little after 8:15, and I had these fleeting thoughts fleeing Guilin:
- This city was so beautiful. If I were to ever come back to China, I’d probably spend a week here.
- Tan, our local guide, told us that she’s had seven bicycles stolen, so she’s stopped buying them.
- She also told us, though, it was on Sunday when we arrived, that they paint the building fronts every two years, to “keep up appearances,” so they look good on the outside even if they’re run down on the inside. “It’s such a shame. We could use that money on so many other things.”
- Tan told us several stories during our time here in Guilin, and she told her last two on this bus ride to the airport.
- After talking a little bit about Mao, and how he is viewed very differently by different people in China—that the older generation tends to revere him and the younger people, not so much. Well, it was her mother’s life dream to see Chairman Mao (at rest in his mausoleum in Tienanmen Square), and when she retired she (along with Tan’s dad) took her first train trip, from the south of China and rode 42 hours, standing up, to Beijing to see him. And then, 42 hours back, starting off standing, but eventually getting a seat after some people got off at one of the stops along the way. Tan had told them to stop in Guilin to visit her on the way back, which they did.
Her mother had seven bags of souvenirs that she brought back from Beijing. She wanted to get something for everything in their family, which is large. When her parents were getting on the train to leave, Tan was handing the bags through the train window to them to get them all on. And somewhere during that trip, it was so crowded on the train, that her mother got a few cracked ribs from the pushing and shoving. When she got home, she said, “I don’t ever want to travel again. I’ve seen Chairman Mao.”
- She told us about the first time she saw a westerner. “I was in grade school, and our teacher told us that a westerner was coming to our class, and that he wanted us to show him how smart we all were when he arrived. So, we studied and studied for weeks and weeks, and when the day finally came, I remember thinking when I first saw him, ‘His hair is a different color. He’s so tall. And his nose is so big.’
When the westerner asked them the question, “What were the four greatest inventions of ancient China?” I was fortunate enough to be called on, and I was so proud to give the right answer. Later on, we found out that the man was a ‘fake’ westerner. He was a very tall friend of the teacher, whom the teacher had asked to put on a wig and a big fake nose and come to class.”
We all laughed, and then of course, wanted to know the answer to the question: gunpowder, the compass, paper, and printing.
- After talking a little bit about Mao, and how he is viewed very differently by different people in China—that the older generation tends to revere him and the younger people, not so much. Well, it was her mother’s life dream to see Chairman Mao (at rest in his mausoleum in Tienanmen Square), and when she retired she (along with Tan’s dad) took her first train trip, from the south of China and rode 42 hours, standing up, to Beijing to see him. And then, 42 hours back, starting off standing, but eventually getting a seat after some people got off at one of the stops along the way. Tan had told them to stop in Guilin to visit her on the way back, which they did.
- We passed a man riding one of those tricycles hauling live chickens, in cages, as his payload.
- All along this trip there have been “love” stories told in context of the history of China, and I’m always struck how they’re all always about straight peopleor animals. Tan told this drawn out story about two panda bears that were mates, but the male died, and so they had an elaborate search for a new male to be brought to Guilin. When they finally found one, it was such a big deal, that people from Guilin met him at the airport, and they had a big celebration of his arrival. They put him in with the female, and after a few weeks, they were getting along so poorly, fighting even, that they had to build the male a separate room. I’m thinking that male panda is gay as hell. It is possible you know; there is homosexuality in the animal kingdom. This doesn’t seem to even occur as a possibility to any of the straight people.
- Several of the stories disengaged me right at the beginningthe emperor’s daughter was looking for a husband… Were any of them ever possibly looking for a wife? Bitter. Party of one? Your table is ready.
- I’m not saying it was humid in my room, but this morning my postcards were all in an arc on the desk.
- I think I said this in an earlier entry, but pedestrians absolutely do not have the right-of-way in China. It was true in Beijing, and it’s certainly true here. It’s incredibly precarious trying to cross any street.
Our bags for this flight were taken care of from our hotel door all the way to Shanghai. That is, we didn’t have to collect them at the airport. Shawn had the porters take them directly to the airline check-in, where they did a group check-in for us.
While we waited for all of that to happen, and for our boarding passes to be delivered to us, I took some pictures in the Guilin airport. We all had a good chuckle about all of the things you had to be in order to take one of these seats:
Your choice of Chinese bathroom or Western bathroom in this airport:
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I didn’t take a picture of the sign that said, “Civilized Airport,” which I’m quite sure was supposed to be “Civilian Airport,” but I did get this one reminding you to save your baggage for the personal columns:
I got my first aisle seat of the trip so far. Paula was going to be in the middle seat next to me, but when we got to our row, some switching had taken place, and I took my aisle seat next to James and Kathleen. Paula took the middle seat on the other side of the aisle.
The two hour or so flight to Shanghai on China Southern was uneventful. We had a quick meal, Chinese food, and I read a little and then nodded a little. I’m reading the book Katherine gave me right before I left. It’s called “Lost in Planet China,” and it’s by the same author who wrote “The Sex Life of Cannibals,” by J. Maarten Troost.
I’m glad I waited to start reading this book a little ways into my trip, instead of at the very beginning. I laughed out loud several times, including while reading these two relevant passages:
And so, as I arrived at the airport to begin the long flight to Beijing, I practiced the few phrases of Mandarin I had memorized. Yes, the Chinese language, every variant of it, would be unfathomable to me, but that didn’t mean I had to arrive completely unprepared. “Qingwen. Wo buhui dun zhege cesuo. Youmeiyou biede cesuo keyi yong?”
“What does that mean, Daddy?” asked my four-year-old son, Lukas.
“It’s Chinese for Excuse me. I am not proficient at squatting. Is there another toilet option?”
And this one:
It was after crossing a street that I came to my second observation about life in Beijing: Do not play chicken with Chinese drivers. Even if they see you, they will not slow down. Even if the pedestrian light is green, they will not slow down. So do not play chicken with Chinese drivers. Or you will die.
A moment later, I made my third observation about life in Beijing: Do not play chicken with Chinese cyclists. See observation 2. Same applies. You will die.
So, so true in our experience, too!
When we arrived in Shanghai, we met our local guide, whose name was Yao Qian, “but you can call me Annie,” she said.
The ride from the airport to Le Royal Meridien in downtown Shanghai immediately confirmed Shanghai as the financial powerhouse of China. The roadways looked like L.A. and the high rises like NYC.
On the ride, Annie introduced us to Shanghai, intimating over and over that it is the most Westernized city in China, and the Chinese people here like that about it. It’s all about the excitement, the Western stores, and the financial and technology markets here.
We talked a little bit again about the “one child per family” rule here, and how if the first child is a girl, after four years you can try again, for a boy. If the second one is a girl, that’s it. She then pointed out that Chinese families actually can have more children, they just have to pay what amounts to a “fine” to have them. In Shanghai, you have to pay 58,000 Yuan (about $9350.00) per parent. In Beijing, it’s double that 116,000 Yuan, or almost $20,000, again per parent!
I asked if there was an issue with abortion here. “No, there isn’t. It’s legal. And since China is not religious, it’s not really an issue.”
Annie pointed out that an issue they do deal with is that some people who can afford to have more children (because they can afford to pay the fine) don’t want them, and some people who do want more can’t afford to have them.
Our outrageously opulent hotel rooms were definitely “Western” style. Here’s some shots of mine:
We had a couple of hours to unpack and freshen up before meeting the bus for our evening out. I got some help in the lobby with directions on how to get to a gay bar named Eddy’s that my friend Adam from Atlanta told me he went to while he was here.
It was kind of funny, as the same thing happened here when I asked where a gay bar might be. Obviously the way to do that with the “underground” gay life here is to invoke a lifeline and “phone a friend.”
When I showed the lady concierge the name of the restaurant, she shook her head to indicate she didn’t recognize it.
“It’s a gay bar,” I said.
Her face lit up, and she said, “Let me call my friend.”
She phoned Leo, who also worked in the hotel and ended up coming down to help me. He was Filipino, is gay, lives here, and has a partner here. He was very, very nice, and wrote the address down, and then the concierge translated it into Chinese so I could just hand it to the cab driver.
Leo told me it would be about 20 yuan for a taxi there, which is cheap, and that a lot of people stop there after work on their way home, so between 6:00 and 8:00 would even be a good time to go during the week. I asked him if people there would speak English, and he said yes, and that the owner and his partner actually lived in NYC for a time.
Most people agreed that tonight’s dinner was our favorite so far. Yes, it was Chinese food again, but again, being that Shanghai is so westernized, several of the dishes were like those you might find in a good Chinese restaurant in the U.S.
The most interesting thing about this restaurant was that it sold the most incredible embroidery tapestries, which were hung on the walls of the entire first floor, where that’s all there was, as well as on the second floor on the walls all around the restaurant.
Expensive. We’re talking Madonna-can-afford-them expensive. I think the lowest one I saw was $980. A majority were between $12,000 and $25,000—yes dollars, not yuan. Here are few of them:
The last thing on the agenda of our long day was attending, “ERA: Intersection of Time,” a most incredible Chinese acrobat show.
It started off with this guy setting down a large cylinder, on top of which he places a flat board and stepped onto it, rolling back and forth and balancing. Then he added what looked like four cans, one in each corner, and then another flat board, which he stepped up on, and a third layer and a fourth layer.
As if that wasn’t precarious enough, he then balanced on one foot and putting the other one in the air, put a bowl in the crook of his foot. Then he kicked the bowl up in the air and caught it on his headno hands of course. Then he took two bowls and did the same thing, as they began to stack on his head. Then three more bowls, then four more bowls, then a teacup, which landed in the top bowl, and finally he flicked a teaspoon up in the tea cup. Just amazing.
A bunch of kids, they’re all young Chinese kids, except their “mentor,” and one of the finest Chinese acrobats around, jumped through a bunch of hoops, first stacked on top of each other, and then facing each other from four directions, and then rotating. They did various other acts with two people jumping onto one end of a see-saw type thing, flipping the person standing on the other end up on to shoulders and a chair being held high up into the air.
The mentor guy did an act with this quite large vase that he tossed in the air and caught in various wayswith his arms, legs, the back of his neck, and eventually his head. He spun it around on his head, turned at a 45° angle, and moved his head to switch it to the opposite angle, and that sort of thing. Then he took one perhaps twice that size and did the same kind of things. Quite amazing.
There was this huge contraption in the air that looked a little like a ferris wheel, and the gymnasts climbed in it and on it, and did crazy things while it rotated high into the air.
The final act, which was the most amazing as you would expect, involved driving motor scooters into this hollow sphere. First one went in it, and drove all around it first horizontally, then vertically, and then in ovals in various directions. Then a second scooter got in there, and then a third, and a fourth and a fifth. It was absolutely mesmerizing and incredible that they did what they did without crashing into each other.
After that three more went in, and this thing wasn’t that big, that’s what was so incredible about it. The last three weren’t in there very long, though, and they mostly stayed around the bottom third of it, while the other five went wild above them.
I remember sitting there at one point, totally engrossed, and thinking, “I am in freaking Shanghai, China, watching this incredible entertainment.”
People to People Technical Communications Professional Delegation to China—Day 8
I had breakfast with Kathleen and James this morning, both of whom I really like. They are partners and they live in Seattle, Washington. Kathleen is a delegate, and James is her guest. She’s a user experience specialist.
Our morning professional meeting was with the Guilin Hunter Information Industry Limited Corporation. I like how the Board Chairman and General Manager of the corporation, Mr. Jiang Tai, asked us to give him our thoughts on what their logo meant—smart to take an advantage of a free international usability test or focus group.
Unfortunately, we didn’t notice that the logo formed a sort of “H” (for Hunter), but probably mostly because we weren’t expecting it to be something English-related. He talked about how, basically, they’re big on the H—three of them, for: Hunter (as in hunting and gathering), Highway (as in going/moving forward into the 21st century), and Hero (what they want to be—heroes).
Next they covered their goals, their historical milestones, and their main businesses, which are software outsourcing and product development. Their main product is RFID, known by lay people as barcoding technology.
They had 12-15 people present, and here’s a shot of them. Mr. Tai is the guy second from the left. (Notice the nice banner on the wall.)
Here’s a subset of our delegation. Linda, our leader, is in the middle of the picture in the brown jacket, and Shawn is sitting to the right of her, partially hidden by the plant.
Shawn is our People to People “National Guide,” which means he travels throughout the trip with us to the three cities. He’s also our translator during meetings, and today I made this note when he was translating some extremely technical stuff: “Shawn is fucking brilliant.” Mind you, he is not a technical communicator, or even a computer person, so his job is very, very challenging; especially when people go on and on with a technical response and then he has to translate it.
In addition to having a great personality, he had superb language skills, both in speaking and translating, and uses shorthand as well to capture main points in long responses.
Their delegation asked us two heavy-duty questions:
- What impact do we feel the subprime mortgage debacle is having in our industry, and
- What are the implications to our profession on outsourcing technical jobs?
We groveled through that with various perspectives from our widely diverse delegation. I gave the specific example of the impact of a technical writer being outsourced by noting that in my job as an editor at IBM, I edited for one outsourced writer, a lady from Bangalore, and the impact that I experienced was that, at the beginning, I spent more time on copyediting her work than on doing a technical edit.
Earlier when Mr. Tai was speaking, he mentioned that he had spent six months working NYC, and he found the biggest obstacle for him to be not understanding the American corporate culture. I asked him, “Can you articulate what about the American corporate culture that was so confounding to you? Was it the capitalistic mindset? The professional and social interaction of the employees of the company? The language itself? Or something other than that?
After our usual group photograph consisting of both delegations together, our exchange of gifts, and exchange of business cards, we headed off to Yuxi Lou Restaurant, which was in the midst of a beautiful park, in which we had some free time to roam after lunch. Here are some pictures from the park.
It had a cute little bridge in it, and here I am on it, compliments of Konrad’s photography work:
Here’s another angle showing the mountainous rocks in the background. On the bridge is Jeanne (a delegate) and her daughter (Kirsten) a guest:
A couple of shots of the flora:
And, as always, there’s always a pagoda lurking surreptitiously:
And, of course, a couple of sign pictures:
I actually didn’t find any grammar issues in this one:
Nor with this one. I just liked it:
Our afternoon meeting was with the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at Guilin University of Technology. We actually met with a programmers’ club of theirs. The folks were all programmers, two women, and the rest guys. Here’s a picture of most of them:
And our delegation—this is a better picture of Shawn, our guide:
You remember earlier, part of the plant covering Shawn’s face? These folks are very fond of plant life down the middle of conference rooms. As you can see in this shot, it was also the case here:
This meeting was by far our best one so far, for a few reasons:
- None of these programmers were sure what technical communicators did. And when they found out we were coming, the googled the profession, and even after trying to read up on it, still didn’t quite get what we did.
- They were students, so they were tonally open and forthcoming about their questions and answers.
- As a result of that, it was very informal and comfortable.
Back at the hotel, I spent some time writing out postcards and putting the $.50 stamps on each one. “They” say they take 5-7 days to arrive in the States. I’ll probably beat them home.
Dinner this evening was yet another Chinese restaurant and yet another Chinese meal. (I’m not sure what I expect. I am in China afterall.) I really didn’t feel like going, though, and almost bowed out, but in the end said, “Go. You don’t have to eat very much. Just go, be social, and take advantage of the opportunity and experience.”
It ended up being a very enjoyable evening. I sat next to Richard, Nadine’s husband, whom I really hadn’t had any interaction with on the trip so far, and whom I really liked immediately. Nadine is a hoot, and they seem like a fun-loving couple. They are always off to find a bar to have a few drinks in wherever we go. They are from Belgium.
Back at the hotel, I walked around the city taking snapshots of its beauty and openness. First, I stopped at a coffee shop that Tan, our local guy had told us about, where they sell cheesecake. At first I thought maybe they were all out, because the only thing I saw that looked like cake slices were slices of Tiramasu and what was labeled Mocha Chocolate Cake.
Eventually I recognized the cheesecakes, by the little sign on them that said “Cheesecake,” but they were in round ceramic bowls, much like you get creme brulee in in the States, only much bigger. It was way more than I wanted.
We had joked at dinner earlier that maybe the dessert was going to be chocolate cake. That being on my mind, I bought a slice of the Mocha Chocolate Cake. As I counted out the 50 Yuan for it, the cashier pointed down to the little pad on which she’d recorded the sale, where it said 15 Yuan.
Thank goodness she was honest, as $8 for a slice of $2.50 cake would have been a bit much. Okay a lot much, if you know me.
Here are some of the pics from around the city. People just seem to break into exercise along the river at night. Someone commented that it was leftover from before the “opening up,” when the citizens were required to exercise:
“Foot Massage” on the left and “Body Massage” on the right:
This is the view from the bridge, looking down over the main street running around the lake. The neon arches are on this side of the street, and that building in the background is on the other side of the street.
This is the view of that bridge from which I took the previous picture:
Here’s a shot of “The Nine Horses,” except that I only see five. Tan told us the story of them, and I’m pretty sure that there were nine as that represented a lucky number of some such superstition, which the Chinese are big on. I’ll have to google this when I get back.
And finally, a few of the local eateries:
People to People Technical Communications Professional Delegation to China—Day 7
I was up before the alarm and wake-up call again today. I logged in, and since there was no response from Kevin M., and since I’m the impatient person that I am, I forwarded a copy of the note I’d sent to him yesterday asking him to post my entries, to both my friend Casey and my friend Kevin R., both of whom are also LJers, so would know how to post for me.
I was just afraid that since I only had Kevin M.’s work e-mail and had sent my request to it, that he might not see it until Monday, and I didn’t want to wait yet another two days to get that stuff posted.
Another huge breakfast buffet at this hotel, and as in the Swissotel in Beijing, containing both western breakfast choices as well as Asian. Let’s see. Today, I chose two pieces of toast, two hard-boiled eggsof which I ate the yoke of only one, two slices of bacon, one inch-long sausage link, and a waffle.
Along with my coffee, I chose watermelon juice, would you believe, which was good, but not as cold as I wanted. I supplemented all that with a fruit plate consisting of fresh cantaloupe, pineapple, and of course, watermelon. That watermelon was cold, and most delicious.
I ate with James, Kathleen, and Konrad. At one point, a woman approached our table, nodded at my “Grammar Police” t-shirt, and asked, “Are you an English teacher?”
I explained that I was a technical editor, and she said, “Well, I’m an English teacher and I could use one of those shirts to keep my kids in line.”
Today was our Li River cruise, our only cultural day here in Guilin, and not unlike our first cultural day in Beijing, it was totally foggy with the added attraction of rain. To that end, our 3.5-hour cruise didn’t yield the beautiful pictures like you see at the website advertising the river cruise, but here’s a sample of some of them:
At one point on our ride, these guys pulled up to the side of our boat and latched onto it, as you can see here:
Then they got up on that very narrow ledge of the boat, and proceeded to try and sell their wares from the other side of the glass:
Debbie Davy ended up buying that purple amethyst from them. They wanted 200 Yuan, but she offered them 100 Yuan, which they promptly snatched up. They rode the boat quite a long ways down the river with us, I mean in terms of them having to get back up to where they came from, that is.
Hey, I got an idea. Let’s pay beaucoup bucks to take a cruise down the Li River in China and then do this the whole way:
What could be more expensive than that? Why, taking the children along, of course:
And, of course no river boat cruise, no river boat cruise of mine at least, would be complete without capturing one or two amusing signs.
The only thing better than warm beef tips is just plain warm tips:
And this gem of a conversion thermometer. Evidently it converts Centigrade, to well, Centigrade:
[This is an inside joke for technical communicators.] And now for an excellent example of that ancient, much loved, rhetorical device—the ordered list:
Among the limited alcoholic selections on the river cruise, Snake Wine was to be found:
Once off the boat, we had about 40 minutes in this little shopping area, where the vendors absolutely hounded everyone to death. This one little woman, she couldn’t have been much over four-feet tall kept tugging at everyone’s clothes begging for money. At one point, she rubbed my stomach like a Buddha belly, with the obvious message being, “You’re not starving.” Not a good way to win friends and influence people.
It was raining a little more than a steady drizzle and every other person walking around there tried to sell us an “unblella.” I found this pronunciation very interesting, and they all did it, including our local guide.
I ended up buying that same bottle that I’d earmarked back at that place near our hotel for 280 Yuan, when I saw it here for 68 Yuan.
“I’ll give you 50 Yuan for it,” I said.
“That’s too low,” the lady said, “I’ll give it for 60 Yuan.” Ten dollars instead of the forty dollars back by the hotel. Yay.
I’ve been itching to buy some post cards, too, and the standard price for all of them has been 10 for 10 Yuan, which is about $1.50. I picked up a pack and asked the guy how much, and he said, “25 Yuan.”
“I’ll take two packs for 20 Yuan,” I said, and he immediately said, “Okay.” Who’s feeling sorry for whom here with a 150% markup (at least) on these goods?
We stopped at a local village on the way back to the hotel, which was a very, very interesting stop. We went inside a local person’s home, where it was immediately and profoundly obvious to all of us how lucky we are. Here’s a shot of one of the rooms, all of which were just open to the outside.
There were a couple of corn fields in this village, and as you can see by the surroundings, it really was a beautiful, beautiful place. I can just imagine it in the bright sunshine.
Here’s a kumquat bush:
And walking a little ways further into the village, we came across this bride and groom getting some professional photographs taken. I know she was cold, in addition to being wet.
All in all, an idyllic little village.
On the drive back to the hotel, some folks made plans to meet for dinner. Tan (pronounced Tahn) made some recommendations of nearby restaurantsall Chinese, of course.
I just tuned out everyone, because there was no doubt in my mind that I was heading right to the McDonalds or Pizza Hut in the center of the city. And that’s exactly what I did. Western food night, thank you very much.
Before I left, of course I checked my e-mail, and was delighted to read that Casey had taken care of my blog entries. Thank you so much, my friend!!!
While I was walking to the city center, at least three, if not four or five, people (all women, but one) approached my obvious white self with hairy legs exposed by shorts, and said, “Massage, mister? Massage?” And then one of them added an extra word…
Now, whenever the two words massage and sex are mentioned in the same sentence, something’s up.
Thinking about how I hate my feet or body flab kneaded, I thought, “You are barking up the wrong tree, ladyin more ways than one.”
I got the “#1 Big Mac Meal” for about $3.40. Good price. The place was teeming with young people.
Since I’d looped around a different way than the direct route from our hotel to the city center where the McDonalds was, I wasn’t sure how to get back. I asked the young boy who had sold me my food, and was now cleaning the tables right around me, “Do you speak English?”
“Yes, a little bit,” he said with a smile.
“Can you tell me which way is back toward the Sheraton?”
“Uh, we don’t have a Sheraton in Guilin,” he said.
“Yes, I’m staying there,” I said. “It faces the lake.”
This couple sitting next to me overheard me asking, and the guy of the couple, who was adorable (another Swede or Norse type man), gave me directions in a totally sexy accent.
Back at my room, I devised this very long blog entry, and I’m tired.
I’m now only one afternoon and evening behind, and that’s Friday, the day we visited with CRD in the morning, and then the Forbidden City in the afternoon. I’m both pissed and putting it off, because I typed a good portion of what’s missing and must have saved over it or lost it somehow.
I absolutely hate having to recreate stuff. I keep doing searches on my laptop in hopes of finding the text somewhere.
People to People Technical Communications Professional Delegation to China—Day 6
We had to have our bags outside our doors at 7:30 AM, which I did and headed down to breakfast. When I returned at 8:15, my bag was still outside my door. I just grabbed it and brought it downstairs with me assuming they’d missed it due to my room change. I’m certainly glad I went back up to my room before leaving.
Since we were unable to visit Tiana’man Square yesterday due to the beginning of the Asian-European Summit starting here in Beijing, we drove by it this morning on the way to the airport. We had only about 40 minutes to walk along the side of the square, basically for a photo op. Here I am with Chariman Mao hanging over my head, well on the wall of the building in the background to the right of me:
As I reflect on my time in Beijing as I depart these things come to mind:
- I never saw the crowding that I expected to, as almost everyone I talked to before coming who had been to China talked about. I expected always to see people walking shoulder-to-shoulder in the streets, but this was never the case. The only places that were what I’d even call crowded, were the toursist spots, which is no different than in the States. Perhaps it’ll be different in Guilin or Shanghai.
- And that made me wonder about when people say things sometimes just to let you know they’ve been to a place, which then made me wonder about what I would say when and if I wanted to make the point, “Oh, I’ve been to China,” in the future. Though, I really try not to do that, it’s quite difficult to resist especially if it sounds like the other person is just mentioning their anecdote to let you know they’ve been somewhere. It’s a good exercise, however, in not making their story be about you.
- Pedestrians absolutely do not have the right-of-way in Beijing, and that may be in all of China. And it might be rooted in possible arrogance of those who have cars. Car drivers have to pay up to $5,000 (a one-time charge) to get a license plate in Beijing. This can be almost 50% of the price of the car!
- I was struck not by the number of cyclists in the city, and not even by the number of three-wheeled cycles, but by the variation in payload on these tricycles. I saw them hauling: jugs of water, pile-upon-pile of multipack toilet paper rolls, tools, street-cleaning tools, and even people. Here’s a couple of shots of some:
- The providing of condoms in the bathrooms of a 5-star hotel room is an interesting juxtaposition. They’re festive boxes, I’ll give them that. Perhaps this is related to the limit on births in the country. That and other interesting cultural things in the room:
- The day before yesterday, I asked our local guide about whether there was a gay bar nearby, and I was surprised by several things in his response: (1) He didn’t bat an eyelash about the question. (2) He thought that the Coco Banana (gotta love that name) near our hotel was gay, or at least a bi place, so called a friend of his to make sure. The friend said that it wasn’t, but that there was a gay bar right across the street from it called Destination. (3) That our guide didn’t give any indication that it might be unsafe or that I should be careful going there, and (4) That the bar was only about two blocks from our 5-star hotel. Gay bars are notoriously in bad parts of towns and cities.
- A blurb in a Beijing paper said, “The presidential race may be close in America, but in China, Barack Obama enjoys a significant lead over John McCain75% to 25%.”
As we approached the airport Shawn collected our passports to do a group check-in for us. I asked him if the toilets on the plane were going to be “Chinese-style” or “Western-style.”
While we were waiting for Shawn to check us in, I asked Linda if the foot massage thing had ever been settled, and she said as far as she knew it was still on and it was going to be easy to bow out without a problem.
At the gate, we had only about a 20-minute wait, and I sat on the floor in front of a plug and plugged in my laptop while I used it. My adapter wouldn’t fit in the socket, but the plug on my regular power cord did, so I used that. After about 10 minutes, my battery had gone from 95% down to 89% and I noticed that the power indicator was green, not yellow, which means that it’s running off the battery.
Our flight was fairly uneventful. I sat between Sherry and Paulaobviously it’s my trip for middle seats. We had a spurt of conversation about Sarah Palin and her inanity, though it was mostly between Paula and Sherry.
We had a nice enough meal on the three-hour flightat least you still get meals on intra-China flights. A small, hot tray container held rice and some beef and vegetables. I think it was beef any way. The container was accompanied by a box, which contained a roll, a most delightful mixture of some vegetables and ham, and some dried cherries, which tasted more like raisins, for dessert.
I picked the ham out of the ham and vegetable medley and put it on my roll for a little ham sandwich. I was jonesing for some mayonnaise, but it didn’t happen.
The three hours just flew by. Badabump. Bump. We’re here through Halloween, folks.
It was quite warm in the airport, and after receiving our bags, we received tags to put on our big bags, which were carried directly to our rooms from the bus.
All of our rooms were in the same area, and there were about four of us in the hallway sticking our keys in the door only to find them not activated. Linda got on a house phone in the hallway, and as she connected, I flipped the key upside down and tried and it worked. As did all of them. We Americans are so set in our ways. Gotta think outside the (locked) box, sometimes.
As soon as I got in the room, I saw a card that said that there was free wireless Internet in the lobby area, and free wireless in the rooms “for our Club Level members.” I immediately took my Starwood Gold Card down to the lobby, and after being an obviously appreciated customer, I was offered a nice, decorative tin of tea, and promptly moved to a room up on the Club Level.
The first thing I did was connect to the Internet, and wade through about 150 e-mails, looking for anything important. We only had about an hour before having to be in the lobby for dinner, and I spent the entirety of that time online. I wrote Robert a quick e-mail telling him how much I’ve missed him, and that I’d be on AIM in a couple of hours after returning from the restaurant.
Dinner was, let me see, oh yeah, Chinese food. A plethora of dishes, all served family style from a huge lazy Susan. Beer for drinks. The highlight of this meal for me was the fried bananas, which were a first for these lunches and dinners we’ve been having, and which I love.
We had the most delightful 10- to 15-minute walk back to the hotel. This city is just beautiful, so luch and green, full of natural wonder, and open. It’s a nice break after the big city of Beijing, and from which Shanghai will be more of the same.
I stopped in a shop and found a bottle that I earmarked for my collection. I was thinkiing I would rather get it in Shanghai, but will at least wait until tomorrow night, our last night here, to buy it here if I do. Debbie Davy bought one. It was 280 Yuan, which is about $45 with the 6.2 to 1 exchange rate.
We passed some people doing exercise by the river, complete with a leader up front with one of those microphones on her head like tour guides use.
Back at the hotel, I was the Internet whore that I am at home and spent nearly four hours online. I had the most wonderful instant message conversation with Robert, and shared a couple of pictures with him, one of which he forwarded on to his mother, who loved it so much she made it her computer wallpaper. I told Robert that that touched me, and that touched him. Bless our messes.
I uploaded the pictures that I want posted to my blog to my personal web space, and then sent an e-mail to Kevin Myers attaching text files of my blog entries for the first four days of my trip, asking him if he’d be kind enough to post them on LiveJournal for me, since I can’t access it.
I got to bed at somewhere around 1:00 or 1:30.
People to People Technical Communications Professional Delegation to China—Day 5
Though our wake-up call was set for 6:30 this morning, I was up at 5:30 after a full night’s sleep. I went ahead and SSSed, and got down to breakfast at about 6:10. The restaurant didn’t open until 6:30, so I sat outside the entrance until then.
This totally Type A man came down at 6:20, and kept grunting and pointing to his watch, trying to let the world know that he had to be somewhere soon, and couldn’t be bothered with something as mundane as opening hours of a restaurant. They kept ushering him off to the side and near the door, as they rushed about getting things prepared for their opening. A (Western) idiot.
Speaking of Western idiots, at some point in the day I was waiting for the elevator and when the door opened for me, this businessman, and I’m guessing an executive, stepped off with two huge pieces of luggage that he was wheeling, and as soon as his bags got past the elevator threshold, he just let go of the handles and kept on walking, over toward the bellhops.
“No, really. Excuse the fuck out of me. I’ll just accommodate you and walk around your bags so that I can enter the elevator.”
I sat with Jeanne for breakfast this morning, but it was quite rushed as I didn’t leave as much time today as I did yesterday for getting dressed afterwards.
Just as we were about to leave, I noticed some people in dress clothes, for our meeting, but with tennis shoes on, and other people carrying a change of clothes. That’s when I remembered that we were going directly sightseeing after our morning business meeting today. Oh well. What I had on wouldn’t be uncomfortable, but I sure wished I’d remembered to at least bring my tennis shoes.
Our meeting this morning was great! We visited the Digital Industry Development Base at Shijingshan District. This building was very cool. Lots of tunnel halls. We received an introduction to the building and their work, and then went to an awesome conference room, where the meeting began after five minutes of time to have some tea and fruit.
When Linda was invited to the podium to introduce us, they played some star wars sounding music. This place had a very playful ambiance to it. After her introduction, she gave her short presentation on the STC.
Professor Lai spoke nextby now he’s a big fan of ours, and he really seems like a pleasant man. I really like the young man who was interpreting on their behalf today. He was the one who gave us the introduction to their office, using a huge wall display in their lobby area.
What I liked about him was that it was obvious that he wasn’t translating word-for-word, and not only that, he injected language that you were quite sure the person speaking didn’t use. For instance, one time he said something like, “We’re happy to have you guys here.”
Next we watched a video introduction to the Cyber Recreation District (CRD). Though the work in the video was very, very interesting, from a technical communication perspective it was quite ineffectivewith all due respect. It was in Chinese with English subtitles, which I very much appreciated, but the subtitles went by so fast that even if you could finish reading the one on the current screen, you absolutely did not have time to look up and see what was happening in the video.
I missed a couple of them, and I know from going to Foreign films, that I read the subtitles much, much faster than the average bear, so I would say, in general, most people were not going to even be able to get through the subtitle before the frame changed. Unfortunate.
Kent Taylor, from our delegation, gave a presentation here on a product his company sells to help in ensuring quality technical information. It basically is a text analyzer and reporter.
After his presentation, we had one more short presentation, because time was limited, which was about outsourcing, but those in our delegation who I asked about it didn’t understand it either.
The meeting ended after that, and we were treated to a tour of the building, out of which several companies that are part of CRD; that is, who got their start and some funding from CRD, run their businesses. We visited a company that develops and sells games for mobile devices. They have quickly become China’s leading gaming company.
In the first room we visited, after a brief introduction from the manager, we were ushered to the back of the room to see a demo. This room housed about 18-20 programmers who sat at very close-quartered desks. The temperature on the wall thermostat read 26° C (79° F), and the blasting heat was the first thing I noticed when I walked into the room. My successive thoughts were:
- My god it’s hot in here.
- I’m surprised all of the computers can keep running in this heat.
- These workers must be so hot. I could never work in this heat.
- My goodness; that guy has a jacket on. And the guy next to him, a sweater. And the guy next to him, a long-sleeved turtle neck shirt, with a coat, but the coat is hanging on the back of the chair.
- This is both a figurative and a literal example of a sweat shop.
I’m guessing the employees were comfortable, as it’s not like anyone was making them keep jackets or sweaters on.
We could see their computer monitors as we moved about the room. Some were programming. Some were testing programs, and one guy was drawing an animated figure on an electronic pad on his desk, and it was rendering up on his monitor.
After the demo of a game on a monitor in this room, we visited another room across the hall where a different game by the same company was being developed. In this room, the manager (the same one who had told us what was going on in the other room), did the same here, and then downloaded the game that this group was developing onto the cell phones of a few folks in our delegation.
The final office area we visited contained programmers who were either working more collaboratively, or were getting ready to go to lunch, as several had gathered around one desk. The manager explained that this group was writing the code that differentiates the different levels of games as you become more proficient in them and move to higher levels.
We actually did our gift exchange outside by the bus, as we hadn’t really alloted time for it inside. From there we drove to The Forbidden City, where we had lunch at the Xinyi Palace Restaurant, right at the gate of the city. Chinese food, lazy Susans, and chopsticks. What else did you expect?
Oh, this was different: our hostesses were in traditional Chinese garb:
Richard, the local People to People guide who’s been with us all week, also acted as our Forbidden City tour guide. Here I am overshadowed, literally, by the Forbidden City. (As I should be.)
Richard explained things like the significance of the stone dragons (a symbol of power) at the entrance:
Most of the structures in the Forbidden City were restored last year. I was struck by the vibrant colors in that area above and behind the dragon and got a close-up shot of it:
I loved this sort of tortoise dragon mixed breed:
We exited through the garden of the Forbidden City, where there was this stunning pagoda:
Dinner was on our own this evening, and I actually skipped it. Earlier in the week, Shawn mentioned that there was a show on in Beijing right now called “The Legend of Kung Fu.” It was like a Broadway play and it had 7 scenes:
- Scene 1. Initiation: The little monk arrives at the temple, and is initiated into the monastery and given the name Chun Yi (the pure one).
- Scene 2. Learning: The little monk is studying Zen and Kungfu very hard, years have gone by, the boy becomes a man.
- Scene 3. Casting: After many years of hard training, our monk Chun Yi’s body turns to iron.
- Scene 4. Illusion: Chun Yi chases the beautiful fairy he has created in his mind, and hence cannot continue with his Buddhist practices.
- Scene 5. Remorse: The monk Chun Yi loses his way of Buddhist practices, and suffers from great remorse.
- Scene 6. Temple Gate: Passing through the temple gate is a glorious ritual for a monk, Chun Yi must accomplish this final task to become a warrior monk.
- Scene 7. Epilogue: The old master passes on the stave, and Chun Yi becomes the Abbot.
Here are a couple of pics I snapped before the lady said to me, “No photo.” (Shawn had told us we were allowed to take photos as long as we didn’t use a flash. Oh well.)
People to People Technical Communications Professional Delegation to China—Day 4
I didn’t sleep at all last night. I got out of the bed at about 2:30, as that’s what “they” say you should do if you’re not sleeping. I went over my presentation again a couple of times, and then tried lights out again. To no avail. I think the fact that I can’t get this room cool enough is not helping at all.
In spite of my alarm set at 6:00, and our wake-up call set for 6:30, I got out of the bed at 5:45, shaved, and showered. By about 6:05 I headed down to breakfast only to find that the restaurant didn’t open until 6:30, so I just hung out down there.
I didn’t have any healthier a breakfast today than I did yesterday, but I rationalized it by saying, “Well, I didn’t have dinner last night.” That’s my story and it’s sticking to me.
As it turned out, only 8 out of our delegation 20 ended up eating dinner out last night, and they got caught in an awful downpour on the way back.
After breakfast, which I ate in shorts and a t-shirt, I went back to my room and put on a suit. Then, I went back down to the lobby and actually stood outside for a while even though it was on the chilly side.
We left the hotel at about 8:15, and we headed to Peking University. When the bus pulled into the driveway it found itself face-to-face with a huge banner across the drive welcoming our group to campus. Unfortunately, it was hung too low in order for the bus to pass. We had to wait just a minute or so until someone came to cut it down. Cheers all around, as we entered.
Once we pulled up to the entrance of the meeting, about three men were rolling out a red carpet, but weren’t yet done. We were all very forgiving and saying things, while still on the bus, like, “How nice. How thoughtful.”
As we got off the bus Shawng said to us, “The Vice Chancellor of Indonesia is visiting today. Sorry guys; the red carpet is for him.” Busted.
All of the people we met, spoke with, and had discussions with at Peking University were so nice! It really was a great morning there. Professor Lai (Maosheng) presented first on the research and practice of technical communication.
Our leader, Linda Oestreich, presented next on the state of the technical communication profession in the United States. She had a rough start trying to show her information on a Mac using Word, but eventually got it situated well enough from which to present.
After a ten-minute break, which included a group picture out in front of the building, I gave my presentation on the MS in Technical Communication at North Carolina State University. From the feedback I received afterwards, it went well, with my favorite description of it being that it was “concise.” I mean isn’t that one of our goals as technical communicators?
Unfortunately, I took all of the pictures of the presenters with the flash off so as not to distract. And for some reason, that made them all come out blurry. Here I am, as good as it gets:
Debbie Davy followed me with her prevention on her MS in Technical Communications, a distance learning degree, from Mercer College. We had quite the Q&A session after her presentation, where “Fred” (which he offered up as an “American name”) asked some good questions.
Next up was Mr. Yao Le, who talked about how CIOs conduct technical communication in China.
Mr. Jin Jianbin talked about “Selling IT to the Organization.” And that was followed by a young, female PhD student filling in for Dr. Zhang Haoda on the Scientific and Art Digital Museum in China.
At the close of the meeting, the delegations swapped gifts, and we received shirts that say “Peking University” on them.
I walked over to the bus and rode over with Fred to the dining area. We had good conversation, and talked about how I might get some free WiFi access, though it never did come to fruition. We could both connect to the university free WiFi, but neither my iTouch nor his iPhone would render a browser page. Here’s a snapshot of “Fred”:
We had lunch at the university, with some very interesting food art. Here’s one of the main dishes. That pagoda is carved out of a very fat carrot.
Another piece of cool carrot art was on another dish:
This place had “Chinese-style” toilets and had the “added feature” of being an “Ally McBeal bathroom” (a.k.a. unisex), which I didn’t realize until after I came out of the stall (which basically contained a hole in the ground, so does it really matter) a picture of a woman on the door. The men’s area was straight to the back of the place, which I didn’t even notice, because I assumed I was in the Men’s room, and I usually use a stall anyway.
There was incense burning all up in this bathroom, too. I think we all know why.
At the end of our most delicious and filling meal, we took a final group picture in front of the offices of most of the Chinese delegation members, and then boarded the bus to head to BASTBeijing Association of Science and Technology.
The meeting with BAST was much more formal feeling than the one at Peking University. Our national guide, Shawng acted as interpreter for our delegation, and the Chinese delegation had one of their own, a woman. It was quite amazing to watch and listen to both of them taking notes during especially long sentences and then regurgitating everything back in the other language. Impressive.
Paula Ludmann from our delegation presented here, and the title of her presentation was: Technical Communication: A Prescription for What Ails Online Medical Content. There was lots of interest in this topic and some good questions and discussion.
Once back at our hotel, I changed rooms from 1026 to 1236, where as it turned out the air-conditioning didn’t work worth a squat either. Oh well. I just took Jenny’s suggestion and opened the window, which was the deal. It’s quite cool here in Beijing, especially at night, and the breeze just pours in. Life is good.
After not much time at all, we were back on the bus and off to the Beijing Wang Fujing Roast Duck restaurant. This was a festive night, complete with “Western-style” washrooms. That always makes us happy.
When we first sat down, and Paula took off her jacket and hung it over the back of her chair, they immediately covered it up with this slip cover that went over her coat and the entire back of the chair.
After many different entrees on the traditional lazy Susan, the Peking Duck dish was served. You took this flat, very very thin, what looked like a soft tortilla, put a couple of pieces of duck on it, added some thick, black sauce to it, and a couple slices of scallions. Fold and eat. Yum. Yum. Yum.
Every once in a while, you’d hear this loud scream come from a table, which was when they threw a cooked scorpion onto the lazy Susan. I believe someone at a table near us actually ate theirs.
Our group was separated into two tables and after a good while into the meal someone started telling jokes, Jenny I believe it was. I think the first one she told was a pun. Little did they know how that would get me started.
I told the “Why the long face?” one, the cannibals eating the clown one, and the Juan and Amhal one. Jenny had some very funny musical instruments jokes.
We had so many entrees come and go, and at one point when a second soup came, Nadine later told me that they weren’t quite sure if it was another kind of soup or a finger bowl to clean their fingers.
Due to sleeping only in a nap between 7:30 and 9:30 last night, and then being awake all night, I was absolutely exhausted when we returned from the restaurant at about 10:00. I jotted down just a couple of blog notes before dropping dead in the bed.
People to People Technical Communications Professional Delegation to China—Day 3
I woke up at 2:00 after 4.5 hours of sleep. I got up for about a half hour as I wasn’t falling right back to sleep. Once I lay back down, I slept until about 6:30. I had the most vivid dreams at some point during the night—not exactly sure if they were during the first hours of sleep or the latter hours.
Two of the dreams where about having gone back to the U.S. to attend a local STC meeting, and then realizing when I was back there, that I was supposed to be in China. I panicked wondering how I was going to be able to get a flight back the same or next day, and how incredibly expensive it was going to be.
The first time I dreamed it, it was so real that when I woke up I was so overwhelmingly relieved to already be in China. When I feel asleep again, and it started happening again, I actually said to myself, in the dream, “I know this seems so real, but I know I’m just dreaming. Wake up.”
I have been able to do this in the past with dreams that are so scary that I want to wake up from them. However, it did not work this time, so once again, when I woke up I was incredibly relieved that it was a dream. Weird.
One of the first things I did this morning was to spray, a very small amount fortunately, some hand sanitizer into my mouth instead of the Zicam I had with me for my cold.
Breakfast this morning was a complimentary buffet, as it will be each morning we’re here at the Swissotel in Beijing. I overate, and I overate bad things—way too many carbs. It was all good, though, and I hope to make better choices the next two mornings. We’ll see.
There were two incredibly hot men in the area of my table, both Swedes or somewhere of that origin, so not dark-haired and hairy like I’m usually attracted to. They both had on jeans that made me think of the lyrics from that country song Badonkadonk: “Lawd have mercy how’d she even get those britches on?”
I had good mornings from Paula and Kathy, and then Linda stopped by my table to tell me that people are having a hard time accessing livejournal.com (for our group blog), which stressed me out. Nothing could be worse than having recommended a blog provider, and then it not work. Especially since the blog provider Linda wanted to use was blogger.com and she said she had no problem posting to her personal blog on it.
I may have to break down and pay $14 to access the Internet in this hotel, and see if I have any problems posting. Grrrrr.
We had an “In-Country Briefing” this morning from 9:00-11:00, in which we were filled in on what to expect throughout our entire trip. Alexia took a couple of pictures, since she was our blogger for today.
Shawn introduced “Richard” who will be the guide for the guests in their touring while we’re in meetings. We covered how to say hello and good morning.
The rest of the briefings covered the following topics. I’ve put the details behind a cut. Click on them if you’re interested in reading them.
People to People Technical Communications Professional Delegation to China—Day 2
We arrived in Beijing at about 4:15 in the afternoon, about an hour later than our originally schedule 3:15 arrival time. I stood in a long line for immigration, and when I got to the front, the attendant asked for my immigration card, which they had run out of on the plane, so I didn’t have one. She just pointed to the back of the cavernous room, and sent me away. No offer to come back to the front of the line when I had it filled out.
I waited again through another long line, and eventually got through, after having to get my boarding pass out, because I had guessed at the flight number to put on the immigration card, and had gotten it wrong. Haste makes waste—as do laziness apparently.
I walked with Paula toward baggage claim, which as it turned out was accessible only by train—a train that took way too long to come for my impatient self.
After about another quarter-of-a-mile walk (not unlike the one in Chicago), we retrieved our bags, and then met the People to People representative at the exit of baggage claim. The rep that met us was actually the National P2P Leader for the Ground Water folks, with whom we were tagging along as we were all staying in the same hotel, and the rest of our Technical Communication delegation was already there.
We learned a few things on the bus along the way:
- The tap water is not potable. We each got a bottle of purified water on the bus. He told us we could wash our faces, shower, and even brush our teeth with the tap water, but just not to drink it.
- Everywhere they can exchange money in Beijing has the same exchange rate, so it doesn’t matter if you do it at the hotel or at a bank or at an ATM machine.
- Beer can be ordered pretty much everywhere. It’s like soda here. There are no age restrictions on its purchase or imbibing.
- There are 17-18 million people in Beijing. Mind the traffic when you’re walking. The traffic signs and signals are treated more like suggestions than anything else.
- Though Beijing has a low crime rate in terms of homicides, prostitution, and drugs, pick-pocketing is not uncommon, and with as many people as there are, it’s always crowded, and the pick pocketers are very, very skilled.
At the hotel the Ground Water National Guide turned us over to our Technical Communication Guide, who I liked immediately—a younger guy, named what was pronounced as Shawn, but whose formal names was Mr. Huang Shunqiang with a part of his email address being shawnhuang.
While Shawn checked us into the Beijing Swissotel, which in order to do he needed our passports, our delegation leader, Linda Oestreich, came over from the bar and introduced herself and welcomed us.
At about 7:00, after a quick shower and outfit change in my room, 1026, I made my way down to the Swiss Cafe on the first floor, where the rest of the delegation (who had been there since around 1:00 PM) had started eating at 6:30. Paula and Kathy (the other two delegates who had arrived with me from Chicago) made their way down after they freshened up as well.
Linda introduced me to everyone, who were spread out at various tables for four. I joined Kathleen Linscott and her guest James Raptis, and Kent Taylor, another delegate. It was nice to put faces to all of the names I’ve been reading about and from for several months now.
Tonight’s complimentary meal was a buffet, and I chose a Chinese beef dish—I’m so tired I already forgot how it was prepared, I just remember that it was delicious—some baked macaroni and cheese, and some mashed potatoes, both starches of which were killer.
I had two slices of multi-grain bread with some butter on it, to top of the starch-fest, and then two rounds of dessert, the first consisting of three slices of watermelon, a chocolate cup with some whipped mocha and a coffee bean on top, and some strawberry mousse with a cherry on top.
That was going to be my complete dessert, but Kent went to an “ice cream bar,” which I hadn’t seen, and when he came back with pistachio ice cream, that was it. It really was a very little amount though, one small scoop. I commented, “In the States this would so not be a portion of anything. It would be mounding over the top of the glass.”
Linda stopped by to check in with our table before heading up to her room for the evening. She quickly reviewed Thursday’s meeting agenda with us, during which she noted that my presentation is scheduled for 10 minutes instead of the 15-20 earlier set. That’s awfully quick. I’ve got some paring down to do.
She reminded Kent of his presentation on Friday, and he said, “Oh? Really? I never received any confirmation from P2P that my proposal to present had ever been accepted. He has 15 minutes. I’m not bitter. (I’m really not. The least amount of time I have to present, the sooner it will be over. I’m not a fan of presenting.) Kent said that the presentation he’s doing is usually 30 minutes of delivery, with 30 minutes for questions afterwards. Guess he’ll be doing some paring, too.
We all retired fairly early—at a little after eight. I unpacked, and was delighted at the little-to-no wrinkles in my clothes, particularly my suit jacket and the two dressiest shirts that I brought to wear with it.
I turned on the TV, primarily to see how much of it would be in English, and was actually surprised at how many options there were. However, they were mostly news-type shows. On one station, some speech of Barack Obama was being broadcasted. I don’t know, and didn’t watch long enough to ascertain as to whether it was live or not.
Interesting, all the way on this side of the world, in the about two-minutes, literally, that I had the TV on, there was a short blurb about an incident at Western Carolina University on the news. I think it might have been CNN. And if I heard it currently, someone had burned a head of a black bear, or something like that, and stuck it on the shoulders of an Obama effigy. Something like that.
That just happened and I can’t recall it for sure. I’m so tired. I’m closing for now.
People to People Technical Communications Professional Delegation to China—Day 1
I was up at 3:30, and after showering called Joe at 3:45 to make sure he was up. He arrived at 4:15, and dropped me off at United in Terminal C at 4:30. There was a very edgy woman directing people to the kiosks and helping them check in. She was a little abrasive, but at least she had it going on.
“Bobby” worked at the terminal behind the kiosk, and tried to help me complete my check-in, since my leg from Chicago to Beijing was booked separately by People to People, and I couldn’t get access to it. After at least 15 minutes, he let edgy lady try, and she wasn’t able to do it either.
This is one example of how her edginess manifested itself:
After taking over from Bobby’s dismal failure, every time she pressed something he nodded his head, and said things like, “Yes, that’s what I did. Yes. It’s not going to let you do that. Yes, I tried that.”
She interrupted him and said, “Stop talking out loud while I’m trying things!”
“I’ll just pick up my bag in Chicago and check it on that next flight myself. I have a four-hour layover,” I said, and that’s what we ended up doing.
“I’ll put a priority tag on it so it’ll be unloaded first for you,” she offered. I’d never heard of such a thing.
The 6:00AM Chicago flight was pretty full, and let’s see, whose face can I put a look of surprise on that the luggage situation is just out of control now that they’re charging to check a bag.
As the last 15 or so people were coming on the plane, the flight attendant from the back said, “Ladies and gentleman all of the luggage space back here is full. Please start looking for somewhere to put your bag at the entrance of the plane as you head back here.” Half of them had to plane-side check their bags.
I drifted in and out of sleep all the way to Chicago. I was worried about sounding like I had a cold, as people on planes really don’t go for that sort of thing, but the first thing the girl sitting in the middle seat next to me did when she sat down was sniffle.
I had to walk at least a half-mile in the Chicago airport to get to “Baggage Claim Area 3.” The first thing I saw when my Chicago to Beijing flight came up on the check-in screen was, “Flight Delayed One Hour.” Make that a 5-hour layover.
After that, I stood in a Disneylandesque line for security. It wound back and forth five times, so I got to see a couple of hotties several times in passing.
At the beginning of my layover, I found some booths along the wall with outlets, fired up my laptop, attached my iPod to my laptop to save all of my battery power for the upcoming 13.5-hour flight, and caught up my blog.
I looked for a free wireless connection, and actually saw one that said, “FreePublicWifi,” but it wouldn’t connect. Bastards.
I checked in with Robert by phone, and caught him just before he got into the shower before heading to work.
As it turned out, the Beijing flight wasn’t delayed, and during the three or so hours I had to wait, I had breakfast at McDonald’s and rehearsed my presentation, which made me look like a bag lady talking to herself in the terminal. Who cares? I’ll never see these people again.
When it got to be within an hour of departure, I headed to gate B16, where I found several other People to People (P2P) people (how redundant), although all of them were with the other P2P groups, and not the other two people traveling from Chicago with my Technical Communication group.
The other two groups were Ground Water folks and nurses, and the nurses had a specialty, which was neurothopy, I think. One nurse was very, very heavy, which is never something one likes to see. There was only one “ground water guy,” and he had a very talkative (to the group) wife, and made several comments about her husband as if he weren’t sitting right there listening, and I was constantly checking out his reaction to see if he was thinking, “There she goes again,” which is certainly what I would have been thinking had it been me. He seemed not at all phased.
An older couple (and you know they were old if they were older than me) sat next to me, and I had a fun exchange with the husband, who was totally into gadgets, especially any kind that you can get free service with, which is exactly how I am. Like me before I saw someone with one, he was not aware of the iPod Touch, and like me, the fact that you use it to access the Internet free without having to pay for a service, such as AT&T with the iPhone, appealed to him immensely. I predict he’ll own one within the next few months.
One of the nurses was the super-organizer type, and she interacted with everyone across groups, so pretty much knew all of us. I kept looking for the other two people in my group, both womenPaula and Kathy. I’d seen a picture of Paula online, but I’m horrible about recognizing people from online, so had no luck.
At one point, I got out my list of “Who’s Flying From Where,” called her cell phone number, but reached her voice mail. There was no cell phone number listed for Kathy. A little while after that, the head nurse (head as “in charge,” not head as in “fellatio”) met Paula, and when Paula mentioned she was with the Technical Communication group, the nurse said, “He’s a technology guy over there; the one with the shirt,” and sent her my way.
I had my Eye-Bee-M shirt on today, and the charge nurse kept referring to me as “the guy with the shirt,” which I thought was cute. What I did not think was cute was how she kept calling our group “the technology group,” when we clearly said “technical communication” whenever we referred to ourselves. But I digress… a tad bitterly I guess…
Paula and I had a nice chat while we waited to board. She has been working really hard at learning Chinese, and it showed. I’m going to stay in her shadow as much as possible, when it comes to English not being a viable option. I’ve also decided that I’m going to try and hang out at the end of our delegation whenever we’re altogether, so that as we’re leaving for instance and everyone is saying goodbye, by the time it gets to me, perhaps I would have heard everyone say something enough that I can just repeat it. Lame. Between that and my point-and-grunt LingoLook, I’m not going to impress anyone in China.
On board, walking toward the back of the plane to my 36D seat, I locked eyes with a woman whose were locked on mine, and we both smiled. “Kathy?”
“John?”
Evidently the charge nurse had alerted her to my outfit as well.
Speaking of the charge nurse, once in my 36D seat, she stood up about four rows ahead of me in the middle seat, 32E, and yelled to me, “Would you mind switching seats with me, since you’re in the middle anyway, and my friend is sitting right next to you?”
I did and moved up four rows and to the right one seat, where I ended up between two American sisters traveling together to the left of me, and a Chinese husband and wife traveling together to the right of me.
We ended up leaving about an hour-and-a-half late, so at around 2:00 instead of 12:30, due to a “mechanical problem” that had something to do with some valve that controls the air-conditioning on the ground, and then is used as back-up power in the air. It got very warm on the plane for just a little while, since they had to turn off the air-conditioning to fix the problem.
A watched a little bit of a Sogourney Weaver movie, the name of which I never caught, but after starting to join in the middle of two other movies that I also didn’t know, it was the only one that was compelling enough to keep my interest. And that’s mostly because I like Sogourney Weaver, though I couldn’t recall her name, but did know “she was that woman from Alien.” Eventually I asked the sister sitting next to me what her name was, and that’s how I know it was Sogourney Weaver. I want to Google her movies when I have Internet access to get the name of it. The actor that played her son was hot.
“Lunch” was served about two hours after we left, so around 4:00. The flight attendant asked, “Chicken or beef?” and I chose chicken, but as soon as I opened it, I thought, “Glad she asked; I got beef anyway.” However, it turned out to actually be chicken, but it was in a dark brown gravy that made it look like beef. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The gravy was soy-based, and the chicken was mixed with noodles and vegetables. It also came with a salad with 1000 Island dressing, which is my dressing of choice, a roll with butter, and a most delicious thick, chocolate fudge brownie for dessert.
After dinner, I tried to run through my presentation again for timing, but I just wasn’t into it, so stopped. From the map option on the individual screens on the backs of the seats in front of us:
Distance Traveled: 1513 Ground Speed: 562 MPH Altitude: 32,000 Feet Outside Temperature: -72° F Head Wind (not to be confused with the head nurse): 64 MPH |
About halfway (6 hours) through the trip, I was struck by being “betwixt and between”:
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The map on the video screen on the back of the seat in front of me, showed me between the eastern and western hemispheres. |
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I was in the very middle seat of the middle section of the planeAB CDEFG HI. |
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I was between two “families”sisters to the left of me, a husband and wife to the right of me. |
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I was caught between meals—was it cereal or soup. (Turned out to be soup.) |
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I was between English speakers and Chinese speakers. |
What’s bad about being in the very middle seat, between people you’re not traveling with on either side, is that you always have to bother someone you don’t know to get out. I tended to favor the sisters, as they spoke English and were nice, although I did slip out once to the right, when the husband of the couple spilled some water and got up to tend to that.
Later after we finished our soup, I looked over his way to find his upper teeth in his hand, slipped back in shortly after. To be more accurate, I think it was a partial.
I slept, albeit restlessly, for about four hours waking up about an hour before landing, when we were offered “Lasagna or a Turkey Sandwich?”
I chose the turkey sandwich as I didn’t feel like messing with hot food, but the sandwich turned out to be hotcovered with melted cheese on a killer kaiser roll. I’m one of the few people I know who likes airline food.
It also came with a small container of Strawberry-Banana yogurt, and a “Raspberry Knot” shortbread cookie. I dislike rasberry, so I ate all around the knot.
Since we’ve passed the International Date Line, and it’s Tuesday, October 21st now, I’m closing today’s entry, and will pick up here in tomorrow’s entry.