India-Beijing (Friday)
Waking up at 6AM was not as bad as I thought since I was able to fall asleep right away at 10PM the night before. Arriving at the airport, I began experiencing how truly different the security system is in India. First, you have to show them a printout of your flight plan before they will print a boarding pass for you. Once you get your board pass, you move to have your checked bag screened by X-ray before passing through security. Then you move to the check-in counter, show your boarding pass and let them take your checked bag. Passing through security, the only two things you have to separate are your laptop and mobile phone. They don’t care about shoes or liquids. Pretty nice, I have to say.
The flight to Trivandrum was long, very long. We actually had to stop in Mumbai for 20 minutes which broke the 4-hour flight into two. You would not believe how quickly they turned around that plane in Mumbai. I mean, they probably had 25 Indians descend on this plane and vacuum, collect trash, replace magazines, replaced cloth head covers, pillow, you name it. It all happened in about 10 minutes. They were actually pushing me out of the way so that they could vacuum where I was standing. You would never see dedication like this in the US.
Landing in Trivandrum, I felt as though this was a place I needed to leave as quickly as possible. It is right on the southern tip of India so it’s a tropical hot-as-hell climates with lots of humidity. Pretty much abject poverty wherever you look. The fact that I was there to talk about the local hospital buying a $5M piece of medical equipment just didn’t seem right to me. I’m certainly glad that they want to treat patients with brain tumors, but it looks to me like they have some other pressing issues to deal with as well. Later in the meeting with the neurosurgeon he explained to me that they spend so much money on protecting their border with Pakistan that very little is left over to spend on their infrastructure and healthcare system. It appears as if we are not the only one facing a problem with radical jihadists. Every Indian I spoke with was in favor of any aggressive action taken by the US because it will inevitable help them as well. They are just trying to raise the standard of living for as many Indians as they can, and they believe they can achieve this goal through economic and capitalist gain. Certainly they have been successful in this regard as of late with the largest middle class in the World. India will also overtake China with the World’s largest population in the next 20 years. Australia has a population of 22 million people. India grows by 22 million people EVERY YEAR! Just try to wrap your head around that. Every year India adds another Australia to its population. I say we keep on their good side as much as possible…
The hospital was a huge military looking installation with 7 floors and no AC. Flies and bad smells everywhere. The neurosurgeon we met with has submitted more clinical papers to the world neurosurgical group than any other, 15! Hard to believe does not begin to describe this. He politely listened to my brief presentation and spent the rest of the time telling me all the places we should go in Trivandrum, but of course, we had no time for that. He just didn’t want me to leave thinking that Trivandrum was nothing but poverty. Right, I’m sure seeing a couple of nice hotels and beach resorts would change my mind on that one.
We hit the airport, sweating through our shirts, and boarded the plane to Chennai, a larger city also on the southern tip, but closer to Sri Lanka on the eastern side of the country. The flight went by real fast and despite the rumblings in my stomach, I did not get and food born illness. I spent a while talking to Manish about BL stuff at Chennai before going to a hotel for a couple of hours to shower, change and re-pack. Manish was an amazing host, he setup the entire trip for us, took care of all the logistics and was extremely kind and generous. We had great talks about the nature of Indian culture (he is a Hindu) the differences between Hinduism and Buddhism, the problem with radical Muslims, the future of BrainLAB in India and just general life stuff. I hope I get a chance to return the hospitality to him when he comes to the US.
The Ramada Chennai is probably not their best location in the world, but it served its purpose. I was able to shake off some cobwebs of not knowing what time zone I was in by cleaning up and getting a fresh set of clothes on. I relaxed a little bit in the room before heading back to the airport. The girl who showed me to my room also offered me a free foot massage…a standard item when checking into this hotel I guess. As tempting as that sounded, I had been in these socks and shoes for 12 hours in hot tropical climates, so I really could not bring my self to torture this poor girl like that and respectfully declined.
Getting to the airport around 9:30 for my 11PM departure, I actually had plenty of time. Unfortunately, this airport offered absolutely nothing in the way of food and drink so I just sat in a chair and fell asleep for an hour before they called us to board. This flight was the overnight portion of the trip, so I really needed to be able to sleep the whole way since I arrived at 6AM the next morning. Popping a couple of lunesta did the tick as I slept the entire flight without waking up once. When I did finally get up from my drug-induced stupor I was in Singapore and it was the next day. Walking around the airport, it took me a while and a huge red-eye from starbuck to shake off the grogginess. I had two hours to kill and I did so by sleeping in the lounge for an hour, then walking around and shopping for the rest of the time, with caffeine in hand. Fortunately or unfortunately, I came across a duty free watch shop that had a watch I had been thinking of buying for years now. The Jaeger-LeCoultre master chronograph diving watch. The price was less than I would pay in the US and it was tax free, so I pulled the trigger. I absolutely love it, but can help but think that I might not have bough it if I was in a normal state of mind. Either way, it looks great, and I’m happy I did it. Unless, of course, I find out it’s fake, but they gave me a certificate of authenticity and they were a high end shop with lots of other brands and also located at the airport and supported by the government, so I doubt it’s actually fake. I will take it to a dealer when I get home though, just to be sure.
Boarding the plane, I was feeling pretty good and ordered a glass of champagne at 9AM! Maybe the earliest I have drank since college. Right now, it’s 11:45 (according to my new watch) and I’ve already had two additional glasses of wine. Considering I am meeting with our CEO later tonight, I should probably switch to coffee at this point…
More to come!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Day 14
Day 14
New Delhi (Thursday)
Now, they had given me access to the club lounge here at the Shangri-la, but I don’t think they realized that by doing this, I was going to wipe them out of donuts, danishes and fruit when I hit the breakfast buffet, which I did at 730 that morning. A quick shower and shave after that and then I hoped a cab to the BrainLAB office in Delhi. The drive was actually beautiful as we passed by parliament buildings that are absolutely gorgeous red stone with perfectly manicured green sprawling lawns. Then we hit the outskirts. Oh my god, is all I can say. If you have never experience fast flowing traffic in India, I doubt there is anything I can write to do it justice. Let’s just say, it’s as if there are no traffic rules whatsoever and cars, motorcycles, scooters, rickshaws, 18 wheelers, dump trucks and any other kind of motorized vehicle you can think of share the same road going in opposite directions and weaving their way around each other constantly. If you go more than five seconds without hearing someone blast their horn at the person in front of them, then I think you’ve set a record. It’s really more like two large groups of insects moving in opposite directions in fast random motion. By some miracle they never run into each other, but they come as close as you could possibly imagine.
Two things along the road also stuck me as unique to India. One, is the amount of cattle that roam freely throughout the city. When I say freely, I mean in the middle of the fucking road! Now, Rubin and I cam across this in farm country in Costa Rica, but right now I’m in the largest city in India with 14 million people and we are routinely stopping to let grazing cows finish eating and make their way across the road. Can you imagine this scene in NYC, which is even small than Delhi? The second thing is that people ride scooters like they are surrounded by an indestructible force field and could never get injured. They don’t wear helmets, they ride through congestion at 50 miles an hour, between cars, around cars, on the wrong side of the road, and best of all, with their children and babies in tow; also with no helmets. Again, you really have to see this shit to believe it.
Ok, so we arrive at the BrainLAB office in Delhi, which could best be described as a 3-bedroom apartment on the second level of a multi-family home. The living room has been converted to the main office area with four people working at individual desks. Oh, it’s also 90 degrees out and humid and there is no AC. There is a chai valet, just like in Slumdog Millionaire and he continues to bring me full cups of tea, even though I really don’t want to drink it for fear of acquiring a stomach bug that will keep my in the toilet for the rest of the trip. To be fair, the tea is actually quite good, and I could get used to having a chai valet in my apartment when I work from home. I’m just not sure where I would keep him? So, here I am in India, being waited on hand and foot, sweating my “you know what” off, looking at pictures of BrainSUITE, VectorVision and Novalis Tx on the walls (BL insiders). Quite an experience.
I set off with Manish Jaiswal (BrainLAB’s director of India) to our first meeting, which was at the Artemis Hospital nearby. BrainLAB has a drive that takes Manish and other employees everywhere. He basically just sits in his car outside the office constantly on call waiting for Manish to come out and tell him where to take us. This is so much better than driving yourself, I have to say, but seemed a little weird to me. It’s not like we were riding in luxury either. The AC barely worked and I was pretty much afraid for my life at all times on the road for reasons mentioned earlier. Ok, meeting #1 was with a radiation oncologist at this private hospital, which was actually really nice and clean. The meeting went well, I went through my typical presentation for the 3,000th time and she seemed to be impressed. We asked a few questions about when she might be thinking to buy and if there anything else she needed and then we left. Pretty basic.
Meeting #2, not so basic. Manish was taking me to the All India Institute of Medicine, the largest hospital in India, the largest research facility in India and the largest school of medicine in India. This is pretty much the Harvard Medical School of India. The do about 4,000 brain surgeries per year. For those, non-BL people reading this, that is a fucking lot! I thought this was going to be a low key meeting with the chairman of the department, who is the most well know oncologist in India. However, upon arrival, Manish informed me that I would be presenting to the entire department, about 50 people. Sure, no problem, I’ve done this many time. The hospital is not exactly the kind of place where most Americans would feel comfortable being treated. There are flies everywhere, it smells pretty bad (mixture of BO and sewer) and there are so many people you can hardly move. Amidst all this, they lead me into a small amphitheatre with a podium setup with a microphone for my presentation. I get my laptop synched up with their projector and all of the sudden I look up and there are 50 people waiting for me to speak. No sooner could I open my mouth did an Indian gentleman come to the front of the room to introduce me! Come on, I have never been introduced in my life, and it’s happening in India!?!? “This is Mr. Aaron Buwrwick, and he is here to present his expertise on Novalis Tx. He is the Director of Novalis Tx in the US (not true, of course) and he has come all the way from Boston to share his knowledge with us.” First of all, I never told this guy I was from Boston, so how he knew is beyond me. Second, I didn’t speak to him at all, so how he knew anything about it is just something I don’t understand. Anyway, feeling like some kind of expert on something (maybe I should have been speaking on eating donuts or something I truly have expertise on) I proceeded with my talk. Everything went well. They were exceedingly thoughtful and asked many appropriate questions, most of which I could not answer and either made up a response that could not be challenged or just said I’d have Manish get back to them on that one. At the end of the presentation one of the younger oncologists came up to me and said that he liked my presentation a lot and that he really enjoyed how I deflected questions that I did not feel were important. He told me I should be a politician. Man, what a compliment!
Now, the next thing that happened was out of this World. Presentation is over, I’m packing up my bag when Manish comes back in the room and tells me I need to follow him. Ok. He brings me out in the hallway and there are about 75 people jammed into one small room adjacent to the lecture hall and they are all waiving for me to join them. Manish is not following. I look back at him and he just shoos me forward saying “go in, go in!” People are actually grabbing me by the arms and shoulders now and lightly pulling me into the room. I’m think one of two things here: (1) they are going to honor me in some way or (2) they are going to sit me down in front of a video camera, bind my hands behind my back, cut my head off and then send the tape to Al-Jazeera. I decide that either way, I’m fine with it. I am pushed into the center of the room and I notice that they have a table setup with many cups of soda poured and boxes of sweets. The chairman looks at me and says: “in India we have a custom. We believe in four Gods. Mother, Father, Teacher and Guest. Today, you are our guest, so you are also a God. None of us will drink or eat until you have so please, have some.” I must have had a blank stare on my face for 30 seconds before I could even think of a response. I was also kind of thinking that today, I was both teacher and guest, which should make me twice as powerful a God, but I did not press on this point as I assumed it might be considered rude and I did not want option #2 I had thought about before entering the room to play out in reality. I simply told them I was honored to be their guest today and that I hoped they found my talk useful in some way. I raised a glass of mountain dew to the crowd, downed it in one gulp and then crushed the empty cup by slamming it in the middle of my forehead! Just kidding, I took a small sip and everyone followed my lead. We stood and talked for about 10 minutes while eating the sweets and then out of the blue, the chairman shakes my hand and says (very abruptly): “ok, thanks for coming, we have another meeting now, safe travels.” What happened to me being a God? Aren’t I calling the shots here? Since when are Gods kicked to the curb like this? Well, not wanting to fake eating the sweets anymore, I was happy they were kicking us out, so we collected our bags and left.
Back to the office for some long overdue work and then we headed to our last meeting of the day, which was a brief dinner at the grand hyatt. Here, I actually did partake in some tradition Indian food, which was really good. I can’t tell you what it was, but I really enjoyed it, though it was a little spicy. Since no one at the table knew much about wine they handed the list to me and I selected a Grenache from France. No one commented on whether or not they liked it, but everyone finished their glasses in about 10 minutes, so I assumed it went over well. We talked about business for a while, but then the conversation again turned to me being from America. The doctor was fascinated to know why, exactly, did I like the movie “Slumdog Millionaire”? Somehow, I didn’t think the standard response of “it was really entertaining” was going to suffice here. I told him that I thought it was basically a love story and that I’m a sucker for those types of movies. I loved that he went on the show, not to win money, but to find his true love through the television set. (Side not, as I’m writing this blog, the song from the movie by MIA just started playing on my iPod…coincidence? I think not). He thought my response was interesting, but he believed the reason the movie was so successful was because so many people are struggling financially that they were enthralled by a story of this rags to riches kid. I could see his point, but confessed I thought it was deeper than that. Then he asked me what I thought of Pakistan….Um, can I really be honest here? Ok, I said they are becoming an increasing problem since Pervez Musharef was ousted from office. He agreed and felt that Indian and Pakistan had major issues right now. I suggested the best course of action would be for India to “wipe Pakistan off the map” and absorb them into their country. He had a good laugh at that (thank God), and confessed he would love to see that happen, but knew that it never would. At this point, I’m thinking maybe I should be a diplomat instead of a medical sales rep…
Dinner is done and I’m back in my bed and all packed for the next day which promises to be the most challenging travel day (or two days) of my life. The plan was:
6:00AM wake up and travel to Airport
8:00 AM fly from Delhi to Trivandrum (4-hours)
2:00-3:00 meeting with famous neurosurgeon
5:30-6:30 Fly from Trivandrum to Chennai (1-hour flight)
4-hour layover in Chennai
11:15PM fly from Chennai to Singapore (5-hour flight) arrive 6AM the next day
2.5 hour layover
8:45AM fly from Singapore to Beijing (5-hour) arriving 3PM that afternoon.
Seriously.
New Delhi (Thursday)
Now, they had given me access to the club lounge here at the Shangri-la, but I don’t think they realized that by doing this, I was going to wipe them out of donuts, danishes and fruit when I hit the breakfast buffet, which I did at 730 that morning. A quick shower and shave after that and then I hoped a cab to the BrainLAB office in Delhi. The drive was actually beautiful as we passed by parliament buildings that are absolutely gorgeous red stone with perfectly manicured green sprawling lawns. Then we hit the outskirts. Oh my god, is all I can say. If you have never experience fast flowing traffic in India, I doubt there is anything I can write to do it justice. Let’s just say, it’s as if there are no traffic rules whatsoever and cars, motorcycles, scooters, rickshaws, 18 wheelers, dump trucks and any other kind of motorized vehicle you can think of share the same road going in opposite directions and weaving their way around each other constantly. If you go more than five seconds without hearing someone blast their horn at the person in front of them, then I think you’ve set a record. It’s really more like two large groups of insects moving in opposite directions in fast random motion. By some miracle they never run into each other, but they come as close as you could possibly imagine.
Two things along the road also stuck me as unique to India. One, is the amount of cattle that roam freely throughout the city. When I say freely, I mean in the middle of the fucking road! Now, Rubin and I cam across this in farm country in Costa Rica, but right now I’m in the largest city in India with 14 million people and we are routinely stopping to let grazing cows finish eating and make their way across the road. Can you imagine this scene in NYC, which is even small than Delhi? The second thing is that people ride scooters like they are surrounded by an indestructible force field and could never get injured. They don’t wear helmets, they ride through congestion at 50 miles an hour, between cars, around cars, on the wrong side of the road, and best of all, with their children and babies in tow; also with no helmets. Again, you really have to see this shit to believe it.
Ok, so we arrive at the BrainLAB office in Delhi, which could best be described as a 3-bedroom apartment on the second level of a multi-family home. The living room has been converted to the main office area with four people working at individual desks. Oh, it’s also 90 degrees out and humid and there is no AC. There is a chai valet, just like in Slumdog Millionaire and he continues to bring me full cups of tea, even though I really don’t want to drink it for fear of acquiring a stomach bug that will keep my in the toilet for the rest of the trip. To be fair, the tea is actually quite good, and I could get used to having a chai valet in my apartment when I work from home. I’m just not sure where I would keep him? So, here I am in India, being waited on hand and foot, sweating my “you know what” off, looking at pictures of BrainSUITE, VectorVision and Novalis Tx on the walls (BL insiders). Quite an experience.
I set off with Manish Jaiswal (BrainLAB’s director of India) to our first meeting, which was at the Artemis Hospital nearby. BrainLAB has a drive that takes Manish and other employees everywhere. He basically just sits in his car outside the office constantly on call waiting for Manish to come out and tell him where to take us. This is so much better than driving yourself, I have to say, but seemed a little weird to me. It’s not like we were riding in luxury either. The AC barely worked and I was pretty much afraid for my life at all times on the road for reasons mentioned earlier. Ok, meeting #1 was with a radiation oncologist at this private hospital, which was actually really nice and clean. The meeting went well, I went through my typical presentation for the 3,000th time and she seemed to be impressed. We asked a few questions about when she might be thinking to buy and if there anything else she needed and then we left. Pretty basic.
Meeting #2, not so basic. Manish was taking me to the All India Institute of Medicine, the largest hospital in India, the largest research facility in India and the largest school of medicine in India. This is pretty much the Harvard Medical School of India. The do about 4,000 brain surgeries per year. For those, non-BL people reading this, that is a fucking lot! I thought this was going to be a low key meeting with the chairman of the department, who is the most well know oncologist in India. However, upon arrival, Manish informed me that I would be presenting to the entire department, about 50 people. Sure, no problem, I’ve done this many time. The hospital is not exactly the kind of place where most Americans would feel comfortable being treated. There are flies everywhere, it smells pretty bad (mixture of BO and sewer) and there are so many people you can hardly move. Amidst all this, they lead me into a small amphitheatre with a podium setup with a microphone for my presentation. I get my laptop synched up with their projector and all of the sudden I look up and there are 50 people waiting for me to speak. No sooner could I open my mouth did an Indian gentleman come to the front of the room to introduce me! Come on, I have never been introduced in my life, and it’s happening in India!?!? “This is Mr. Aaron Buwrwick, and he is here to present his expertise on Novalis Tx. He is the Director of Novalis Tx in the US (not true, of course) and he has come all the way from Boston to share his knowledge with us.” First of all, I never told this guy I was from Boston, so how he knew is beyond me. Second, I didn’t speak to him at all, so how he knew anything about it is just something I don’t understand. Anyway, feeling like some kind of expert on something (maybe I should have been speaking on eating donuts or something I truly have expertise on) I proceeded with my talk. Everything went well. They were exceedingly thoughtful and asked many appropriate questions, most of which I could not answer and either made up a response that could not be challenged or just said I’d have Manish get back to them on that one. At the end of the presentation one of the younger oncologists came up to me and said that he liked my presentation a lot and that he really enjoyed how I deflected questions that I did not feel were important. He told me I should be a politician. Man, what a compliment!
Now, the next thing that happened was out of this World. Presentation is over, I’m packing up my bag when Manish comes back in the room and tells me I need to follow him. Ok. He brings me out in the hallway and there are about 75 people jammed into one small room adjacent to the lecture hall and they are all waiving for me to join them. Manish is not following. I look back at him and he just shoos me forward saying “go in, go in!” People are actually grabbing me by the arms and shoulders now and lightly pulling me into the room. I’m think one of two things here: (1) they are going to honor me in some way or (2) they are going to sit me down in front of a video camera, bind my hands behind my back, cut my head off and then send the tape to Al-Jazeera. I decide that either way, I’m fine with it. I am pushed into the center of the room and I notice that they have a table setup with many cups of soda poured and boxes of sweets. The chairman looks at me and says: “in India we have a custom. We believe in four Gods. Mother, Father, Teacher and Guest. Today, you are our guest, so you are also a God. None of us will drink or eat until you have so please, have some.” I must have had a blank stare on my face for 30 seconds before I could even think of a response. I was also kind of thinking that today, I was both teacher and guest, which should make me twice as powerful a God, but I did not press on this point as I assumed it might be considered rude and I did not want option #2 I had thought about before entering the room to play out in reality. I simply told them I was honored to be their guest today and that I hoped they found my talk useful in some way. I raised a glass of mountain dew to the crowd, downed it in one gulp and then crushed the empty cup by slamming it in the middle of my forehead! Just kidding, I took a small sip and everyone followed my lead. We stood and talked for about 10 minutes while eating the sweets and then out of the blue, the chairman shakes my hand and says (very abruptly): “ok, thanks for coming, we have another meeting now, safe travels.” What happened to me being a God? Aren’t I calling the shots here? Since when are Gods kicked to the curb like this? Well, not wanting to fake eating the sweets anymore, I was happy they were kicking us out, so we collected our bags and left.
Back to the office for some long overdue work and then we headed to our last meeting of the day, which was a brief dinner at the grand hyatt. Here, I actually did partake in some tradition Indian food, which was really good. I can’t tell you what it was, but I really enjoyed it, though it was a little spicy. Since no one at the table knew much about wine they handed the list to me and I selected a Grenache from France. No one commented on whether or not they liked it, but everyone finished their glasses in about 10 minutes, so I assumed it went over well. We talked about business for a while, but then the conversation again turned to me being from America. The doctor was fascinated to know why, exactly, did I like the movie “Slumdog Millionaire”? Somehow, I didn’t think the standard response of “it was really entertaining” was going to suffice here. I told him that I thought it was basically a love story and that I’m a sucker for those types of movies. I loved that he went on the show, not to win money, but to find his true love through the television set. (Side not, as I’m writing this blog, the song from the movie by MIA just started playing on my iPod…coincidence? I think not). He thought my response was interesting, but he believed the reason the movie was so successful was because so many people are struggling financially that they were enthralled by a story of this rags to riches kid. I could see his point, but confessed I thought it was deeper than that. Then he asked me what I thought of Pakistan….Um, can I really be honest here? Ok, I said they are becoming an increasing problem since Pervez Musharef was ousted from office. He agreed and felt that Indian and Pakistan had major issues right now. I suggested the best course of action would be for India to “wipe Pakistan off the map” and absorb them into their country. He had a good laugh at that (thank God), and confessed he would love to see that happen, but knew that it never would. At this point, I’m thinking maybe I should be a diplomat instead of a medical sales rep…
Dinner is done and I’m back in my bed and all packed for the next day which promises to be the most challenging travel day (or two days) of my life. The plan was:
6:00AM wake up and travel to Airport
8:00 AM fly from Delhi to Trivandrum (4-hours)
2:00-3:00 meeting with famous neurosurgeon
5:30-6:30 Fly from Trivandrum to Chennai (1-hour flight)
4-hour layover in Chennai
11:15PM fly from Chennai to Singapore (5-hour flight) arrive 6AM the next day
2.5 hour layover
8:45AM fly from Singapore to Beijing (5-hour) arriving 3PM that afternoon.
Seriously.
Day 13
Melbourne/Singapore/New Delhi (Wednesday)
The hotel choice was key, as I woke up feeling like a million bucks Wednesday morning, ready to tackle a 20 hour journey to New Delhi by way of Singapore. All I can say is thank you BrainLAB for booking me in business class. Ok, I had a nutella-filled croissant with powdered sugar and a cappuccino for breakfast. Just amazing, though a little sweet for me actually. I am going to be at least 20 pounds heavier when I get back I think. In the cab on the way to the airport, I realized something bad: I had left my watch in the hotel room! Damn, the thing only cost me $45 on Canal street in NYC, but it was a perfect chopard ripoff. I called the hotel and they found it for me, but had no way of getting it to me as they are not able to ship jewelry (little did they know, this did not really qualify as a precious item). Ok, no problem. Phil lives in Melbourne so I will just ask him to pick it up either before I meet him in Beijing or sometime after that. No worries. At the airport, they made me check my bag, which kind of sucks because I’m going to have to wait for it in New Delhi late this evening when I get in, but I had no choice. Their weight restrictions are so stringent, my bag was twice the legal limit. Shit.
I checked in and made it through security in 10 minutes (seriously), got distracted by all the amazing duty free shops. After purchasing a t-shirt, short sleeve button down and pair of sunglasses, I faintly heard them say over the PA that this was the final boarding call for flight 238 to Singapore. Oops. I made my way over to the gate as quick as I could, but I was not deterred from stopping at a book store and purchasing “My Steve”, by Terri Irwin. A chronicle of her late husband’s life; the Crocodile Hunter. As in LA, I was the last person to board the flight by far. You would think I would learn that I’m cutting it a little too close. You would think that I would have arrived a little earlier since missing this flight would probably end up costing me my job, but no. What is the fun in that? A glass of champagne at 11AM and writing this blog.
India, here I come (for a day and half).
My flight landed around 10PM local time in New Delhi. The flight itself was not bad, business class can vary depending on the aircraft and this one did not have seats that go all the way down, bummer. My philosophy on this flight was to get rip roaring drunk so that I would stay up and feel like passing out when I got to the hotel around 4AM. Naturally, this would just seem like an ordinary Saturday night out for me (of late) and I would feel normal the next day, right? Well, the drunk part I got covered. Champagne, followed by wine, two cocktails appropriately named “sky high” (mixture of vodka, 7-up, and cointreau) and sake. The sake was being delivered as we were within an hour of landing, so I wanted to be sure I made this one last for the additional hour it was going to take to get to the hotel. When I ordered from the stewardess, she brought me a small glass, poured it half full from the bottle and started to walk away. I stopped her immediately and asked if I could keep the bottle. She looked at me kind of startled (he must be an alcoholic) I believe she was thinking in her mind, but kindly left the bottle for me to finish, which I did in about 20 minutes. Yeah, that did the trick.
I stumbled off the plane and followed the crowd to customs. Indian customs was a complete joke. The border patrol agent did not ask my one question, barely glanced at my visa and passport, threw down the stamp and let me pass. Waiting for my bag about 15 minutes at the claim and tried very hard not to give away the fact that I was falling over drunk, lest one of these guys get the idea they could steal the wallet of this amazingly stupid american. Ok, bags are in hand; next step is to find my damn driver who is going to bring me to the hotel. Now, India is very different that the US. The most commonly available and cheapest resource in this country is human life. Therefore, EVERYONE has a driver. When you walk out to Ground Transportation there are roughly 100 drivers standing with names on their cards. I must have walked up and down the row of drivers three times without seeing anyone with my name, wonderful. I tried to ask the security guard how to dial information, but he was not understanding and kept telling me to walk the line again. Since he was carrying an AK-47 and didn’t seem to be in the mood to really help me out, I determined that the best course of action was to take his advice. Sure enough, I saw a driver with the name of the hotel I was going to, Shangr-La, standing there and I approached him. “Mr. Aaron Burwick” the man holding the sign while talking on his cell phone and clearly not paying attention said, “Yes, that’s me”, ok lets go. It kind of pissed me off they didn’t have my name up, but it’s not like I’m going to complain to someone who understands about 10% of what I’m saying.
The Shangri – La is a great hotel, very clean, modern and overall a great place to stay. Service is also top notch. They must have 15 people waiting to greet you at the door and take your bag. Checked into the room, unpacked a little, popped a couple magic sleeping pills and was out like a light. My strategy had worked. My arrival to India pretty much went off without a snag.
The hotel choice was key, as I woke up feeling like a million bucks Wednesday morning, ready to tackle a 20 hour journey to New Delhi by way of Singapore. All I can say is thank you BrainLAB for booking me in business class. Ok, I had a nutella-filled croissant with powdered sugar and a cappuccino for breakfast. Just amazing, though a little sweet for me actually. I am going to be at least 20 pounds heavier when I get back I think. In the cab on the way to the airport, I realized something bad: I had left my watch in the hotel room! Damn, the thing only cost me $45 on Canal street in NYC, but it was a perfect chopard ripoff. I called the hotel and they found it for me, but had no way of getting it to me as they are not able to ship jewelry (little did they know, this did not really qualify as a precious item). Ok, no problem. Phil lives in Melbourne so I will just ask him to pick it up either before I meet him in Beijing or sometime after that. No worries. At the airport, they made me check my bag, which kind of sucks because I’m going to have to wait for it in New Delhi late this evening when I get in, but I had no choice. Their weight restrictions are so stringent, my bag was twice the legal limit. Shit.
I checked in and made it through security in 10 minutes (seriously), got distracted by all the amazing duty free shops. After purchasing a t-shirt, short sleeve button down and pair of sunglasses, I faintly heard them say over the PA that this was the final boarding call for flight 238 to Singapore. Oops. I made my way over to the gate as quick as I could, but I was not deterred from stopping at a book store and purchasing “My Steve”, by Terri Irwin. A chronicle of her late husband’s life; the Crocodile Hunter. As in LA, I was the last person to board the flight by far. You would think I would learn that I’m cutting it a little too close. You would think that I would have arrived a little earlier since missing this flight would probably end up costing me my job, but no. What is the fun in that? A glass of champagne at 11AM and writing this blog.
India, here I come (for a day and half).
My flight landed around 10PM local time in New Delhi. The flight itself was not bad, business class can vary depending on the aircraft and this one did not have seats that go all the way down, bummer. My philosophy on this flight was to get rip roaring drunk so that I would stay up and feel like passing out when I got to the hotel around 4AM. Naturally, this would just seem like an ordinary Saturday night out for me (of late) and I would feel normal the next day, right? Well, the drunk part I got covered. Champagne, followed by wine, two cocktails appropriately named “sky high” (mixture of vodka, 7-up, and cointreau) and sake. The sake was being delivered as we were within an hour of landing, so I wanted to be sure I made this one last for the additional hour it was going to take to get to the hotel. When I ordered from the stewardess, she brought me a small glass, poured it half full from the bottle and started to walk away. I stopped her immediately and asked if I could keep the bottle. She looked at me kind of startled (he must be an alcoholic) I believe she was thinking in her mind, but kindly left the bottle for me to finish, which I did in about 20 minutes. Yeah, that did the trick.
I stumbled off the plane and followed the crowd to customs. Indian customs was a complete joke. The border patrol agent did not ask my one question, barely glanced at my visa and passport, threw down the stamp and let me pass. Waiting for my bag about 15 minutes at the claim and tried very hard not to give away the fact that I was falling over drunk, lest one of these guys get the idea they could steal the wallet of this amazingly stupid american. Ok, bags are in hand; next step is to find my damn driver who is going to bring me to the hotel. Now, India is very different that the US. The most commonly available and cheapest resource in this country is human life. Therefore, EVERYONE has a driver. When you walk out to Ground Transportation there are roughly 100 drivers standing with names on their cards. I must have walked up and down the row of drivers three times without seeing anyone with my name, wonderful. I tried to ask the security guard how to dial information, but he was not understanding and kept telling me to walk the line again. Since he was carrying an AK-47 and didn’t seem to be in the mood to really help me out, I determined that the best course of action was to take his advice. Sure enough, I saw a driver with the name of the hotel I was going to, Shangr-La, standing there and I approached him. “Mr. Aaron Burwick” the man holding the sign while talking on his cell phone and clearly not paying attention said, “Yes, that’s me”, ok lets go. It kind of pissed me off they didn’t have my name up, but it’s not like I’m going to complain to someone who understands about 10% of what I’m saying.
The Shangri – La is a great hotel, very clean, modern and overall a great place to stay. Service is also top notch. They must have 15 people waiting to greet you at the door and take your bag. Checked into the room, unpacked a little, popped a couple magic sleeping pills and was out like a light. My strategy had worked. My arrival to India pretty much went off without a snag.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Day 12
Sydney/Melbourne (Tuesday)
Ertan and I caught an 8:30AM flight to Melbourne, just an hour jaunt. I still absolutely cannot believe that when you fly domestic in Australia, they do not check your ID at all. I printed my boarding pass from the kiosk and they actually gave me an option to print out Ertan’s pass as well since we had booked together. Insane. Slept the whole way there until about 10 minutes before we landed where I could see out the window a huge swath of burnt land from wildfires they had a month or so earlier. Ertan informed me that morning that he was feeling sick, and proceeded to sneeze every five minutes from that point on. Obviously, I spent most of the day trying to get as far away from him as possible since there was no way I wanted to catch a cold before heading to India and China. We had a couple of meetings at a local hospital in Melbourne and then checked into our hotel. Now, I realize that I am a bit of a hotel snob, and maybe this is an understatement, but this place that Ertan booked me at was just not going to do. I took two steps into the room, checked the bed to see that they had just draped a sheet over the bare mattress and promptly connected to the Internet (for free, basically the only good thing they offered) and booked the Westin Melbourne, which was right around the corner.
This is a classic move on my part and should not surprise anyone reading this email. I will pay for the difference in price myself, and it is well worth the $100 to be comfortable and have a good night’s sleep (and also get starpoints). My room was spectacular. It had it’s own private balcony overlooking a picturesque square with lots of coffee shops and restaurants. Clearly, I had made the right decision. A quick workout in the hotel gym, which was amazing and then a high level business dinner with the CEO and Neurosurgeon of the leading hospital in Melbourne. Oh, and their wives and daughters. A little weird that they brought there family with them, but hey, I’m not in Kansas anymore.
It was clear from the very beginning that me being from the US was going to be the main topic of conversation for these people. I must have fielded at least 30 questions ranging from why I was chosen to be the one from the US to do this Asian trip, to why I wasn’t married, to what my top five favorite cities in the US were, to how the local seafood in Melbourne compares with Boston and on and on. Now, I generally like talking about myself, so this was actually kind of fun and of course two jack and diets, two fantastic sauvignon blancs from NZ and a bailey on the rocks made it all the more enjoyable. The meal was good. The only thing I will describe was the dessert: caramel chunk ice cream on a bed of gingerbread. Wow! And, Rubin, this may be the first place where they actually listed cheese under the heading of “Dessert” as if it were a dessert item. Clearly, these people have no idea what their talking about. Although they did serve the cheese with something sweet: fruit and nuts. The other funny thing about this restaurant is that their signs for the bathrooms were stick figures of a man and a women, each one with their respective reproductive organs clearly drawn. Definitely the first time I have ever seen that in a place where they serve $75 entrees. Ok with entrees at any price.
Ertan and I caught an 8:30AM flight to Melbourne, just an hour jaunt. I still absolutely cannot believe that when you fly domestic in Australia, they do not check your ID at all. I printed my boarding pass from the kiosk and they actually gave me an option to print out Ertan’s pass as well since we had booked together. Insane. Slept the whole way there until about 10 minutes before we landed where I could see out the window a huge swath of burnt land from wildfires they had a month or so earlier. Ertan informed me that morning that he was feeling sick, and proceeded to sneeze every five minutes from that point on. Obviously, I spent most of the day trying to get as far away from him as possible since there was no way I wanted to catch a cold before heading to India and China. We had a couple of meetings at a local hospital in Melbourne and then checked into our hotel. Now, I realize that I am a bit of a hotel snob, and maybe this is an understatement, but this place that Ertan booked me at was just not going to do. I took two steps into the room, checked the bed to see that they had just draped a sheet over the bare mattress and promptly connected to the Internet (for free, basically the only good thing they offered) and booked the Westin Melbourne, which was right around the corner.
This is a classic move on my part and should not surprise anyone reading this email. I will pay for the difference in price myself, and it is well worth the $100 to be comfortable and have a good night’s sleep (and also get starpoints). My room was spectacular. It had it’s own private balcony overlooking a picturesque square with lots of coffee shops and restaurants. Clearly, I had made the right decision. A quick workout in the hotel gym, which was amazing and then a high level business dinner with the CEO and Neurosurgeon of the leading hospital in Melbourne. Oh, and their wives and daughters. A little weird that they brought there family with them, but hey, I’m not in Kansas anymore.
It was clear from the very beginning that me being from the US was going to be the main topic of conversation for these people. I must have fielded at least 30 questions ranging from why I was chosen to be the one from the US to do this Asian trip, to why I wasn’t married, to what my top five favorite cities in the US were, to how the local seafood in Melbourne compares with Boston and on and on. Now, I generally like talking about myself, so this was actually kind of fun and of course two jack and diets, two fantastic sauvignon blancs from NZ and a bailey on the rocks made it all the more enjoyable. The meal was good. The only thing I will describe was the dessert: caramel chunk ice cream on a bed of gingerbread. Wow! And, Rubin, this may be the first place where they actually listed cheese under the heading of “Dessert” as if it were a dessert item. Clearly, these people have no idea what their talking about. Although they did serve the cheese with something sweet: fruit and nuts. The other funny thing about this restaurant is that their signs for the bathrooms were stick figures of a man and a women, each one with their respective reproductive organs clearly drawn. Definitely the first time I have ever seen that in a place where they serve $75 entrees. Ok with entrees at any price.
Day 11
Sydney (Monday)
Today, began my BrainLAB portion of the trip, fun time is now officially over. Getting dressed in a shirt and tie with no jacket (they are more casual in Australia), I got in a cab and headed out to meet Ertan in our first meeting of the day. When the cab pulled up to the hospital, I was sure he had taken me to the wrong place, because this sure as heck looked liked someone’s house. I asked him if he had indeed taken me to the Dalrcross Private Hospital and he said: “yes, look at sign”. I looked at the house, and sure enough, there was a little sign noting the hospital name. Ok, I paid the fare and hoped out. Ertan met me there about ten minutes later and we walked inside. It really was a house that had been converted to a small (I mean, really small) hospital. I kept thinking to myself, how is it possible these people are considering a $5M purchase of medical equipment? Then I realized that this building was really just for some offices and treatment rooms, nothing major. We met with the CEO of the hospital and he pretty much let us know that it is unlikely he is going to buy our product. I tried to turn him around a little bit with some compelling arguments that have worked in the US for me, but we’ll have to see how this plays not. Not likely to happen, I my opinion. Nice guy though.
Next we went to the BrainLAB “office” outside of Sydney for a few hours of work. The office is just a two floor commercial space with storage on the bottom and four desks and employees on the top. Everyone was really nice and I was able to get a lot of work done. After that it was drinks with the local Varian manager and dinner with the leading radiation oncologist in Australia. He was a really nice guy and liked to drink as most everyone does here. Toward the end of the meal, we were all feeling pretty good and he asked my who I reported to in the US. I told him I worked under Jason Chandler, and he said: “literally or figuratively?” Hmm, how do you spell A-W-K-W-A-R-D in Australian? Everyone else laughed, though I’m pretty sure my face turned red. The only response that came to mind was: “well, I am really close with him”. Ok, good ending to the first official day of business on my trip.
Today, began my BrainLAB portion of the trip, fun time is now officially over. Getting dressed in a shirt and tie with no jacket (they are more casual in Australia), I got in a cab and headed out to meet Ertan in our first meeting of the day. When the cab pulled up to the hospital, I was sure he had taken me to the wrong place, because this sure as heck looked liked someone’s house. I asked him if he had indeed taken me to the Dalrcross Private Hospital and he said: “yes, look at sign”. I looked at the house, and sure enough, there was a little sign noting the hospital name. Ok, I paid the fare and hoped out. Ertan met me there about ten minutes later and we walked inside. It really was a house that had been converted to a small (I mean, really small) hospital. I kept thinking to myself, how is it possible these people are considering a $5M purchase of medical equipment? Then I realized that this building was really just for some offices and treatment rooms, nothing major. We met with the CEO of the hospital and he pretty much let us know that it is unlikely he is going to buy our product. I tried to turn him around a little bit with some compelling arguments that have worked in the US for me, but we’ll have to see how this plays not. Not likely to happen, I my opinion. Nice guy though.
Next we went to the BrainLAB “office” outside of Sydney for a few hours of work. The office is just a two floor commercial space with storage on the bottom and four desks and employees on the top. Everyone was really nice and I was able to get a lot of work done. After that it was drinks with the local Varian manager and dinner with the leading radiation oncologist in Australia. He was a really nice guy and liked to drink as most everyone does here. Toward the end of the meal, we were all feeling pretty good and he asked my who I reported to in the US. I told him I worked under Jason Chandler, and he said: “literally or figuratively?” Hmm, how do you spell A-W-K-W-A-R-D in Australian? Everyone else laughed, though I’m pretty sure my face turned red. The only response that came to mind was: “well, I am really close with him”. Ok, good ending to the first official day of business on my trip.
Day 10
Sydney (Sunday)
Sitting at my outdoor café The Oyster Club in Sydney Harbour listening to Jack Johnson on the loudspeakers sipping a mocha cappuccino and eating a fresh baked croissant enjoying a cool ocean breeze; Could life get any better? Oh wait, here come the poached eggs on Turkish toast with chickpea and tomato ragout…yup it’s better. Sorry, for the foodie talk again, but it was a great way to start the day.
After this, I digested a little then tied up my laces and went for a run through the botanical gardens. This was one of the best runs I’ve ever had in my life, and that’s saying a lot (sarcasm). Seriously, though, the botanical gardens are amazing and they have a trail that runs along the water with the gardens on one side and views of the water, buildings and opera house on the other. The route was so gorgeous I hardly even noticed I was running. About ¾ of my way through, I saw an exhibit in the gardens that stopped me in my tracks: DARWIN. They had his name spelled out in huge polished rocks with quotes from Darwin on each one. They also had an appropriate word written on each letter like “Adaptation”, “Selection” and “Variability”. I was so excited to take a picture of this I ran at top speed (about 7 miles and hour) back to the hotel. I was being picked up by Ertan for a personal tour of the city in two hours, so I packed my bag, grabbed my camera, and went straight back out to the gardens. I took so many pictures from so many angles of the exhibit, a girl who was laying in the grass kept looking at me, like I was really weird or something. I felt like telling her I was a high school biology teacher or something and this was for my class, but then realized that I did not need to explain myself to a girl who clearly had not shaved her legs in years.
I grossly underestimated how long it would take to get to the Darwin exhibit and back and Ertan had to wait for me about 20 minutes. Oops. We got into his Volkswagen Gulf Rabbit with a twin turbo, 300 horsepower engine, which he was very proud of and made our way to lunch in Watson Bay, I think? Fish and Chips at a beachfront bar were amazing. A couple of margaritas to go with, and I was feeling pretty good. That was, until Phil called. Phil is the VP of BrainLAB Asia/Pacific and was to be taking me through this trip to India, Beijing and Hong Kong. Ertan handed the phone to me:
Aaron: “Hello”
Phil: “Hey, Aaron it’s Phil.”
Aaron: “Hey, what’s going on?”
Phil: “Nothing, listen, I hate to say this, but there’s been a few issues with my mum, she fell and broke her shoulder and now I need to stay with her for a couple days so you’ll be travelling to India alone.”
Aaron: silence
Phil: “Hello”
Aaron: “Um, ok”
Phil: “Don’t worry, Manish, our guy in India will handle everything once you’re there.”
Aaron: “Right, ok, well I hope everything works out well for your mum.”
Suddenly, the nice buzz I had going was gone and I was very much sober. Ok, no big deal, I need to be able to roll with the punches on this trip. In fact, it might actually be better for me to not travel with Phil on this hellish flight schedule since I am more than likely not going to be in the best of moods once I’m 5 hours into the 20 hour journey. No worries. Ertan was a great host and drove me around to different points of the city for a couple of hours explaining a lot about the local landscape to me as we went. Having walked and run 6 miles earlier in the day, I was exhausted by the time I made it back to the hotel. Needing to see the sunset at least once while in Sydney, I forced myself down to one of the bars on the water in Darling harbour, had a couple of beez neez wheat beers and wrote the blog I published a couple of days ago about LA. On the way back, I spotted a wagamamas and ordered some noodles to go, which I ate in the hotel room in bed, exhausted from the day. I ordered Body of Lies, which I watched while falling asleep. It was ok, not great. One of Russell Crowe’s worst role’s, I thought, but I’m always a fan of Leo. Personally, I think it’s a bullshit ending. There is no way he would have left the CIA for this Muslim girl in Amman. Please.
Sitting at my outdoor café The Oyster Club in Sydney Harbour listening to Jack Johnson on the loudspeakers sipping a mocha cappuccino and eating a fresh baked croissant enjoying a cool ocean breeze; Could life get any better? Oh wait, here come the poached eggs on Turkish toast with chickpea and tomato ragout…yup it’s better. Sorry, for the foodie talk again, but it was a great way to start the day.
After this, I digested a little then tied up my laces and went for a run through the botanical gardens. This was one of the best runs I’ve ever had in my life, and that’s saying a lot (sarcasm). Seriously, though, the botanical gardens are amazing and they have a trail that runs along the water with the gardens on one side and views of the water, buildings and opera house on the other. The route was so gorgeous I hardly even noticed I was running. About ¾ of my way through, I saw an exhibit in the gardens that stopped me in my tracks: DARWIN. They had his name spelled out in huge polished rocks with quotes from Darwin on each one. They also had an appropriate word written on each letter like “Adaptation”, “Selection” and “Variability”. I was so excited to take a picture of this I ran at top speed (about 7 miles and hour) back to the hotel. I was being picked up by Ertan for a personal tour of the city in two hours, so I packed my bag, grabbed my camera, and went straight back out to the gardens. I took so many pictures from so many angles of the exhibit, a girl who was laying in the grass kept looking at me, like I was really weird or something. I felt like telling her I was a high school biology teacher or something and this was for my class, but then realized that I did not need to explain myself to a girl who clearly had not shaved her legs in years.
I grossly underestimated how long it would take to get to the Darwin exhibit and back and Ertan had to wait for me about 20 minutes. Oops. We got into his Volkswagen Gulf Rabbit with a twin turbo, 300 horsepower engine, which he was very proud of and made our way to lunch in Watson Bay, I think? Fish and Chips at a beachfront bar were amazing. A couple of margaritas to go with, and I was feeling pretty good. That was, until Phil called. Phil is the VP of BrainLAB Asia/Pacific and was to be taking me through this trip to India, Beijing and Hong Kong. Ertan handed the phone to me:
Aaron: “Hello”
Phil: “Hey, Aaron it’s Phil.”
Aaron: “Hey, what’s going on?”
Phil: “Nothing, listen, I hate to say this, but there’s been a few issues with my mum, she fell and broke her shoulder and now I need to stay with her for a couple days so you’ll be travelling to India alone.”
Aaron: silence
Phil: “Hello”
Aaron: “Um, ok”
Phil: “Don’t worry, Manish, our guy in India will handle everything once you’re there.”
Aaron: “Right, ok, well I hope everything works out well for your mum.”
Suddenly, the nice buzz I had going was gone and I was very much sober. Ok, no big deal, I need to be able to roll with the punches on this trip. In fact, it might actually be better for me to not travel with Phil on this hellish flight schedule since I am more than likely not going to be in the best of moods once I’m 5 hours into the 20 hour journey. No worries. Ertan was a great host and drove me around to different points of the city for a couple of hours explaining a lot about the local landscape to me as we went. Having walked and run 6 miles earlier in the day, I was exhausted by the time I made it back to the hotel. Needing to see the sunset at least once while in Sydney, I forced myself down to one of the bars on the water in Darling harbour, had a couple of beez neez wheat beers and wrote the blog I published a couple of days ago about LA. On the way back, I spotted a wagamamas and ordered some noodles to go, which I ate in the hotel room in bed, exhausted from the day. I ordered Body of Lies, which I watched while falling asleep. It was ok, not great. One of Russell Crowe’s worst role’s, I thought, but I’m always a fan of Leo. Personally, I think it’s a bullshit ending. There is no way he would have left the CIA for this Muslim girl in Amman. Please.
Day 9
Sydney (Saturday)
Ah, waking up and 6AM and actually feeling normal and good. What is going on here? Have I slipped into some parallel universe and changed places with Rubin? I had eggplant last night and am getting up at the crack of dawn. I wonder if he is sleeping will 10AM and eating a donut for breakfast? This would be like the bizzarro word on Seinfeld when Jerry and Kramer switch apartments. Well, I’m willing to bet my life that Rubin is not doing anything that I would normally do, so I think it’s just me that is a little out of whack. Anyway, I went down to the concierge to see if he could recommend any good breakfast places, but since nothing would open for another hour, I made off in the direction of this district called The Rocks, which is a nice park area in Sydney Harbour overlooking the Opera House. On my way there I discovered several amazing things. #1 There was a Lulu Lemon store right outside my hotel on George Street. #2 There is a high end cupcake place on the same street. #3 McDonalds serves donuts in Australia as part of their McCafe, which competes with the local coffee houses. I walked in to take a picture of the donuts in the case at McDonald’s and people kind of looked at me funny, like “what the hell is this guys taking a picture of?” Ok, #4, and best of all, there is a Starbucks right at the entrance to The Rocks! Naturally, I walked inside and promptly ordered a grande red-eye. Of course, they had no idea what this was, so I explained it was a house blend drip coffee with a shot of espresso added. “Interesting”, the barista remarked. And there it is, I have just taught the starbucks people in Sydney how to make a red-eye. Just doing my part to bring America’s addiction to over-caffeinate ourselves with commercially available liquid crack to the other side of the World. I hope it catches on. I almost thought about telling them how to make a black-ye, but I didn’t feel that they were ready for that.
With my first cup of starbucks down under in hand, I strolled along the waterfront park on an amazing morning with a light sea breeze blowing. I snapped a couple photos of the Opera House and then had breakfast at the Oyster Club, which is a cute café sitting right on the dock. Back to the hotel from there, I decided that this day would be about getting to the beach and then maybe doing a little shopping. Threw on my suit, packed my backpack with two towels from the hotel room, sunscreen (which I wasn’t sure if I was going to use), water, a book, and my ipod. The concierge instructed me on how to take the bus to Bondi Beach and it seemed easy enough. The day before, my BrainLAB colleague, Ertan, suggested hitting this beach before I left. He also mentioned that I “should be fine” swimming in the water there as they had “only” had three shark attacks in the last month or so. Right. That makes me feel safe.
The bus ride was actually really cool since I got to see some of the other districts of Sydney including Hyde Park and Paddington, where they had the largest outdoor flea market I’ve seen since Webster! (Inside joke for Burwicks). Getting to the beach was amazing, we dropped down this huge decline in the road and from a busy shopping district emerged a an absolutely beautiful beach with the city in the background. I hoped off at the first stop so I could walk the beach a little while scoping out my place to sit. Well, I made it about 100 yards when I saw a group of three really attractive girls sunbathing on their backs with no tops on. It seemed to me that this was the most logical place to throw down my bag and catch some rays. Now, I did put sunblock on my shoulders and chest, but wanted to get a little color in my face, so I did not use any there for the first hour or so. I know some people reading this email will not believe I would risk being this stupid (again), but I guess we all have our weaknesses. The surf at Bondi Beach is unreal. Enormous waves come crashing in just 30 yards or so of the shore. Surfers are literally everywhere and it’s actually hard to find a spot to swim. I picked a place I thought I could paddle around for a little bit without getting my skull crushed by the board of some pot-head smoking, no deodorant wearing, beach bum and started wading out. There really is no way to ease yourself into the water at Bondi because as soon as you’re ankle deep you start getting pounded with waves. I made a feeble attempt at a slow ingress and then just decided that it was all or nothing and dove straight into an oncoming wave. The water temp was actually perfect, not frigid and not warm. I swam for a good 30 minutes. Riding the waves in was pretty fun, something I hadn’t done in a long time (mostly because I had not seen waves like this in a long time). Toward the end of my time in the water I remembered Ertan’s comment about the shark attacks. I started looking around for dark shadow moving stealthily through the water and imagined my leg being bitten off by a Carcarian Carcarus (Linean name for Great White). I rembered Ertan had also said that I should just make sure I’m “not the deepest person in the water” and that as long as I’m not swimming at dawn or dusk, I was fine. Well, I wasn’t the deepest person in the water, but that strategy didn’t make sense to me. I mean, do sharks always attack the first person they encounter? I don’t think so. On the other hard, I doubt my skinny legs would make for an appetizing target. Somehow that did not comfort me and the wisdom the old fisherman Quinn from Jaws came back to me:
“You go in the cage.
Cage goes in the water.
Shark’s in the water.
Our shark...
Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies.
Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain.
For we’ve received orders to sail back to Boston.
And so, nevermore, shall we see you again.”
Yeah, ok, done with the water, thanks.
Spent another hour or so in the sun then started to feel as though I was making a huge mistake by not putting sun block on my face, so I lathered some on, put on my sox cap and went for a stroll along the boardwalk. First, I had a scoop of cappuccino gelato that was insane. Then I made my way into some cool surfer gear shops where I bought a new pair of board shorts (even though I don’t surf or board in any way) and black tee shirt that said “Bondi” on it in orange letters. Then I got a couple gifts at this outdoor market with local artists who make their own jewelry and clothing. Finally, I found a middle-eastern place and had an amazing falafel sandwich. When I went to pay for the sandwich, I realized I did not have anymore Aussie dollars though and they did not take American or credit cards. The clerk asked the manager to come out and he said he would take a greenback, put I would have to pay an equal exchange rate. A complete ripoff for sure, but if the sandwich was worth $7 then it was surely worth $10, not a big deal. When I gave him the $20 he gave me back $10 Aussie and then looked and me and said (in broken English with a heavy Arabic accent): “I’m going to enjoy spending your American money when I make it over to the US”… This was followed by an eerie devilish chuckle, kind of like Dr. Evil. I was actually expecting him to bring his pinkie to his mouth and stroke a bald cat at this point. “An evil petting zoo?” Feeling as though I had possibly given this loyal servant to Akbar, the last $20 he needed to make his pilgrimage to the UNholy land of the infidel and kill as many of my friends and family as possible, I collected my $10 dollars, laughed un uncomfortable laugh and walked away slowly as one might from a bear in the woods.
Now, heading back toward the beach I noticed something strange. There was a lot of commotion going on all around and people were congregating around the rim of the shoreline. I crossed the street to see what was up and was startled to see that EVERYONE was out of the water, sirens were blaring, speed boats were racing out into the water and a helicopter came straight over my head and hovered over the ocean about 100 yards out. Of course, this could only mean one thing: someone had spotted a shark. I felt my blood run cold for a minute as I thought about the fact that I was actually swimming in the open water with a shark nearby. I thanked the lord, Jesus Christ, snapped a couple photos of the unbelievable scene and hailed a cab home. On our way, we passed through a gorgeous area of the city known as Double Bay. I saw a bunch of stellar homes and remarked to the cab driver: “this seems like a nice place to live”. He looked at me with pitty, laughed out loud and said: “yeah, you need $5M minimum to live here. It’s the most exclusive section of town. Nicole Kidman lives here”. Ah, it was as if I was just passing through Beverly Hills for the first time, making the same comment. I’m pretty sure, my cab fair just went up about 100%. Silly American.
Nothing funny or weird happened for the rest of the day. I shopped around my hotel, but didn’t really buy anything of value. One interesting thing is that they still have Woolworth’s in Australia. I would not be surprised if my dad is booking his flight right now, to take advantage of the countless bargains that must be available in there on all kinds of quality items. I did also go to the Lulu store to see if they had anything different here than in the States. They did not. However, I did see a pair of boxer briefs that looked really comfortable so I brought those up to the register. The girl behind the counter told me these were very popular and really comfortable. “How would she know this?” I thought to myself. For some reason, I really did not know what to say in response, so I muddled something like: “yeah; I’ve been wanting to try them for a while. I’m excited to see how they fit”. No response from the girl. Ok, awkward moment, I’ll just take that receipt and be on my way.
I ordered pizza to go from a local place, watched a movie and fell asleep.
Ah, waking up and 6AM and actually feeling normal and good. What is going on here? Have I slipped into some parallel universe and changed places with Rubin? I had eggplant last night and am getting up at the crack of dawn. I wonder if he is sleeping will 10AM and eating a donut for breakfast? This would be like the bizzarro word on Seinfeld when Jerry and Kramer switch apartments. Well, I’m willing to bet my life that Rubin is not doing anything that I would normally do, so I think it’s just me that is a little out of whack. Anyway, I went down to the concierge to see if he could recommend any good breakfast places, but since nothing would open for another hour, I made off in the direction of this district called The Rocks, which is a nice park area in Sydney Harbour overlooking the Opera House. On my way there I discovered several amazing things. #1 There was a Lulu Lemon store right outside my hotel on George Street. #2 There is a high end cupcake place on the same street. #3 McDonalds serves donuts in Australia as part of their McCafe, which competes with the local coffee houses. I walked in to take a picture of the donuts in the case at McDonald’s and people kind of looked at me funny, like “what the hell is this guys taking a picture of?” Ok, #4, and best of all, there is a Starbucks right at the entrance to The Rocks! Naturally, I walked inside and promptly ordered a grande red-eye. Of course, they had no idea what this was, so I explained it was a house blend drip coffee with a shot of espresso added. “Interesting”, the barista remarked. And there it is, I have just taught the starbucks people in Sydney how to make a red-eye. Just doing my part to bring America’s addiction to over-caffeinate ourselves with commercially available liquid crack to the other side of the World. I hope it catches on. I almost thought about telling them how to make a black-ye, but I didn’t feel that they were ready for that.
With my first cup of starbucks down under in hand, I strolled along the waterfront park on an amazing morning with a light sea breeze blowing. I snapped a couple photos of the Opera House and then had breakfast at the Oyster Club, which is a cute café sitting right on the dock. Back to the hotel from there, I decided that this day would be about getting to the beach and then maybe doing a little shopping. Threw on my suit, packed my backpack with two towels from the hotel room, sunscreen (which I wasn’t sure if I was going to use), water, a book, and my ipod. The concierge instructed me on how to take the bus to Bondi Beach and it seemed easy enough. The day before, my BrainLAB colleague, Ertan, suggested hitting this beach before I left. He also mentioned that I “should be fine” swimming in the water there as they had “only” had three shark attacks in the last month or so. Right. That makes me feel safe.
The bus ride was actually really cool since I got to see some of the other districts of Sydney including Hyde Park and Paddington, where they had the largest outdoor flea market I’ve seen since Webster! (Inside joke for Burwicks). Getting to the beach was amazing, we dropped down this huge decline in the road and from a busy shopping district emerged a an absolutely beautiful beach with the city in the background. I hoped off at the first stop so I could walk the beach a little while scoping out my place to sit. Well, I made it about 100 yards when I saw a group of three really attractive girls sunbathing on their backs with no tops on. It seemed to me that this was the most logical place to throw down my bag and catch some rays. Now, I did put sunblock on my shoulders and chest, but wanted to get a little color in my face, so I did not use any there for the first hour or so. I know some people reading this email will not believe I would risk being this stupid (again), but I guess we all have our weaknesses. The surf at Bondi Beach is unreal. Enormous waves come crashing in just 30 yards or so of the shore. Surfers are literally everywhere and it’s actually hard to find a spot to swim. I picked a place I thought I could paddle around for a little bit without getting my skull crushed by the board of some pot-head smoking, no deodorant wearing, beach bum and started wading out. There really is no way to ease yourself into the water at Bondi because as soon as you’re ankle deep you start getting pounded with waves. I made a feeble attempt at a slow ingress and then just decided that it was all or nothing and dove straight into an oncoming wave. The water temp was actually perfect, not frigid and not warm. I swam for a good 30 minutes. Riding the waves in was pretty fun, something I hadn’t done in a long time (mostly because I had not seen waves like this in a long time). Toward the end of my time in the water I remembered Ertan’s comment about the shark attacks. I started looking around for dark shadow moving stealthily through the water and imagined my leg being bitten off by a Carcarian Carcarus (Linean name for Great White). I rembered Ertan had also said that I should just make sure I’m “not the deepest person in the water” and that as long as I’m not swimming at dawn or dusk, I was fine. Well, I wasn’t the deepest person in the water, but that strategy didn’t make sense to me. I mean, do sharks always attack the first person they encounter? I don’t think so. On the other hard, I doubt my skinny legs would make for an appetizing target. Somehow that did not comfort me and the wisdom the old fisherman Quinn from Jaws came back to me:
“You go in the cage.
Cage goes in the water.
Shark’s in the water.
Our shark...
Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies.
Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain.
For we’ve received orders to sail back to Boston.
And so, nevermore, shall we see you again.”
Yeah, ok, done with the water, thanks.
Spent another hour or so in the sun then started to feel as though I was making a huge mistake by not putting sun block on my face, so I lathered some on, put on my sox cap and went for a stroll along the boardwalk. First, I had a scoop of cappuccino gelato that was insane. Then I made my way into some cool surfer gear shops where I bought a new pair of board shorts (even though I don’t surf or board in any way) and black tee shirt that said “Bondi” on it in orange letters. Then I got a couple gifts at this outdoor market with local artists who make their own jewelry and clothing. Finally, I found a middle-eastern place and had an amazing falafel sandwich. When I went to pay for the sandwich, I realized I did not have anymore Aussie dollars though and they did not take American or credit cards. The clerk asked the manager to come out and he said he would take a greenback, put I would have to pay an equal exchange rate. A complete ripoff for sure, but if the sandwich was worth $7 then it was surely worth $10, not a big deal. When I gave him the $20 he gave me back $10 Aussie and then looked and me and said (in broken English with a heavy Arabic accent): “I’m going to enjoy spending your American money when I make it over to the US”… This was followed by an eerie devilish chuckle, kind of like Dr. Evil. I was actually expecting him to bring his pinkie to his mouth and stroke a bald cat at this point. “An evil petting zoo?” Feeling as though I had possibly given this loyal servant to Akbar, the last $20 he needed to make his pilgrimage to the UNholy land of the infidel and kill as many of my friends and family as possible, I collected my $10 dollars, laughed un uncomfortable laugh and walked away slowly as one might from a bear in the woods.
Now, heading back toward the beach I noticed something strange. There was a lot of commotion going on all around and people were congregating around the rim of the shoreline. I crossed the street to see what was up and was startled to see that EVERYONE was out of the water, sirens were blaring, speed boats were racing out into the water and a helicopter came straight over my head and hovered over the ocean about 100 yards out. Of course, this could only mean one thing: someone had spotted a shark. I felt my blood run cold for a minute as I thought about the fact that I was actually swimming in the open water with a shark nearby. I thanked the lord, Jesus Christ, snapped a couple photos of the unbelievable scene and hailed a cab home. On our way, we passed through a gorgeous area of the city known as Double Bay. I saw a bunch of stellar homes and remarked to the cab driver: “this seems like a nice place to live”. He looked at me with pitty, laughed out loud and said: “yeah, you need $5M minimum to live here. It’s the most exclusive section of town. Nicole Kidman lives here”. Ah, it was as if I was just passing through Beverly Hills for the first time, making the same comment. I’m pretty sure, my cab fair just went up about 100%. Silly American.
Nothing funny or weird happened for the rest of the day. I shopped around my hotel, but didn’t really buy anything of value. One interesting thing is that they still have Woolworth’s in Australia. I would not be surprised if my dad is booking his flight right now, to take advantage of the countless bargains that must be available in there on all kinds of quality items. I did also go to the Lulu store to see if they had anything different here than in the States. They did not. However, I did see a pair of boxer briefs that looked really comfortable so I brought those up to the register. The girl behind the counter told me these were very popular and really comfortable. “How would she know this?” I thought to myself. For some reason, I really did not know what to say in response, so I muddled something like: “yeah; I’ve been wanting to try them for a while. I’m excited to see how they fit”. No response from the girl. Ok, awkward moment, I’ll just take that receipt and be on my way.
I ordered pizza to go from a local place, watched a movie and fell asleep.
Day 8
Sydney (Friday)
Having slept through the night and landing at 10AM Sydney time, I actually felt surprising good, like it was the next normal day (though it was actually one day ahead of how I felt). Hopping a cab, I made my way to the Westin Hotel Sydney in Martin Place, which is basically between Darling Harbour and Sydney Harbour. The hotel was absolutely gorgeous with an open atrium that had a glass ceiling with views onto all of the nearby skyscrapers. I unpacked a few clothes in the room, took a quick shower and went straight out to Darling Harbour. This area is very similar to the waterfront in Cape Town, with lots of cool shops and restaurants along the water. I had a nice lunch at one of these seaside eateries and then went back to the hotel to rest a little. In need of some serious stretching and physical activity I looked up a local gym online that seemed like it was pretty nice and found may way over there for a workout. The gym was cool, not many people working out on a Friday afternoon though as most aussies were at the bar and half in the bag by 2PM it seemed like. I did a decent chest workout and a 3 mile run on the treadmill, which I was in desperate need of after spending 14.5 hours on a plane in pretty much the same position. Feeling the jet lag catch up with me a bit I decided to have a quiet dinner (I guess it would have to be since I was by myself) and the Italian place in the hotel. They had tables setup outside on Martin Place, which is similar to Quincy Market in Boston, just without all the tourists. I’ve been told that my blog is a little boring because of my detailed description of all the food I’ve been eating, so I’m going to cut this down. Suffice it to say, my dinner was excellent: roasted eggplant to start and seafood linguine for the main course. Paired with a local New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, it was perfect. BED. I realize this is a very dull description of my day, sorry about that, I just can’t remember anything too exciting happening. I probably should have wrote this day before it faded from my memory…
Having slept through the night and landing at 10AM Sydney time, I actually felt surprising good, like it was the next normal day (though it was actually one day ahead of how I felt). Hopping a cab, I made my way to the Westin Hotel Sydney in Martin Place, which is basically between Darling Harbour and Sydney Harbour. The hotel was absolutely gorgeous with an open atrium that had a glass ceiling with views onto all of the nearby skyscrapers. I unpacked a few clothes in the room, took a quick shower and went straight out to Darling Harbour. This area is very similar to the waterfront in Cape Town, with lots of cool shops and restaurants along the water. I had a nice lunch at one of these seaside eateries and then went back to the hotel to rest a little. In need of some serious stretching and physical activity I looked up a local gym online that seemed like it was pretty nice and found may way over there for a workout. The gym was cool, not many people working out on a Friday afternoon though as most aussies were at the bar and half in the bag by 2PM it seemed like. I did a decent chest workout and a 3 mile run on the treadmill, which I was in desperate need of after spending 14.5 hours on a plane in pretty much the same position. Feeling the jet lag catch up with me a bit I decided to have a quiet dinner (I guess it would have to be since I was by myself) and the Italian place in the hotel. They had tables setup outside on Martin Place, which is similar to Quincy Market in Boston, just without all the tourists. I’ve been told that my blog is a little boring because of my detailed description of all the food I’ve been eating, so I’m going to cut this down. Suffice it to say, my dinner was excellent: roasted eggplant to start and seafood linguine for the main course. Paired with a local New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, it was perfect. BED. I realize this is a very dull description of my day, sorry about that, I just can’t remember anything too exciting happening. I probably should have wrote this day before it faded from my memory…
Day 7
(LAX to SYD)
I hit the airport at 9:45PM for an 11PM flight to Australia, maybe what some would consider cutting it a little close. In fact, when I walked up to the check-in counter, they said: “Aaron?”. Wow, this new VAustralia Airline (Virgin Australia) is really on their game! “Yes”, I replied, “how did you know?”. “Well, you are the only one on the plane that has not checked in yet.” Ah hah, good thing I wasn’t checking an luggage. “Can we see your travel Visa, sir?” “Um, I wasn’t aware that you needed a travel visa for Australia.” SHIT! “No problem, sir, we will call the embassy and print one out for you right here.” WHAT?!?!?! I guess travelling biz class has it’s perks. I can’t believe they were able to just print a travel visa for me at the check-in counter 45 minutes before I’m supposed to board. With that near fiasco behind me, I walked through security in 15 minutes and made it to the gate just in the middle of the boarding process. If I had waited another 20 minutes or so to get to the airport, I would have missed this flight. No Worries!
The plane was amazing. A glass of champagne was definitely in order before takeoff, and it seemed like everyone was enjoying this pre-flight ritual.
I feel so excited about the trip. It’s been amazing already. The guy next to me runs a company that focuses on outfitting children in the developing world with glasses so that they don’t become blind later in life, which is what happens to most of them. He does this by running a company that manufactures and sells innovative optical technology and donates about 30 percent of their profits to the humanitarian side. Just amazing. Only on travel like this do you meet people of this sort; makes me feel as though living in HK might open so many other avenues for me.
Some of the cool things are that they actually turn the lights off and have lights of the stars on the ceiling to help you sleep. They have touchscreen monitors with hundreds of movies and tv channels, radio, cd collection, games, it’s insane. I started with an episode of the family guy, which was hysterical. Then I moved onto watching the dark night again while I had my dinner and had two glasses of wine followed by two glasses of bailey’s on the rocks…what the waitress in Dallas called adult milk…yeah. Dinner was excellent. A crab cake to start, then red snapper and an apple tart with vanilla ice cream to finish. I mean, I can’t believe this qualifies as “airline food”. (That “I mean” is to be pronounced like Ben would say it). Next, I changed into the sleep suit that they give you, yeah that’s right, they give you a very comfortable sleep suit as well as a bunch of other amenities. Two lunesta and I was out for the next 8 hours. When I woke up I asked the stewardess how much long till we land, and she said: “an hour and a half, sir”. I could not believe my ears, this was the easiest 14.5 hour flight I had ever taken! Ok, it’s the only 14.5 hour flight I’ve ever taken, but since the seat goes all the way down to a bed, I slept soundly for so long that it seemed like a normal night’s sleep. We arrived in SYD at 10AM plus one day so I felt pretty normal upon arrival in the Land Down Under.
I hit the airport at 9:45PM for an 11PM flight to Australia, maybe what some would consider cutting it a little close. In fact, when I walked up to the check-in counter, they said: “Aaron?”. Wow, this new VAustralia Airline (Virgin Australia) is really on their game! “Yes”, I replied, “how did you know?”. “Well, you are the only one on the plane that has not checked in yet.” Ah hah, good thing I wasn’t checking an luggage. “Can we see your travel Visa, sir?” “Um, I wasn’t aware that you needed a travel visa for Australia.” SHIT! “No problem, sir, we will call the embassy and print one out for you right here.” WHAT?!?!?! I guess travelling biz class has it’s perks. I can’t believe they were able to just print a travel visa for me at the check-in counter 45 minutes before I’m supposed to board. With that near fiasco behind me, I walked through security in 15 minutes and made it to the gate just in the middle of the boarding process. If I had waited another 20 minutes or so to get to the airport, I would have missed this flight. No Worries!
The plane was amazing. A glass of champagne was definitely in order before takeoff, and it seemed like everyone was enjoying this pre-flight ritual.
I feel so excited about the trip. It’s been amazing already. The guy next to me runs a company that focuses on outfitting children in the developing world with glasses so that they don’t become blind later in life, which is what happens to most of them. He does this by running a company that manufactures and sells innovative optical technology and donates about 30 percent of their profits to the humanitarian side. Just amazing. Only on travel like this do you meet people of this sort; makes me feel as though living in HK might open so many other avenues for me.
Some of the cool things are that they actually turn the lights off and have lights of the stars on the ceiling to help you sleep. They have touchscreen monitors with hundreds of movies and tv channels, radio, cd collection, games, it’s insane. I started with an episode of the family guy, which was hysterical. Then I moved onto watching the dark night again while I had my dinner and had two glasses of wine followed by two glasses of bailey’s on the rocks…what the waitress in Dallas called adult milk…yeah. Dinner was excellent. A crab cake to start, then red snapper and an apple tart with vanilla ice cream to finish. I mean, I can’t believe this qualifies as “airline food”. (That “I mean” is to be pronounced like Ben would say it). Next, I changed into the sleep suit that they give you, yeah that’s right, they give you a very comfortable sleep suit as well as a bunch of other amenities. Two lunesta and I was out for the next 8 hours. When I woke up I asked the stewardess how much long till we land, and she said: “an hour and a half, sir”. I could not believe my ears, this was the easiest 14.5 hour flight I had ever taken! Ok, it’s the only 14.5 hour flight I’ve ever taken, but since the seat goes all the way down to a bed, I slept soundly for so long that it seemed like a normal night’s sleep. We arrived in SYD at 10AM plus one day so I felt pretty normal upon arrival in the Land Down Under.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
LAX to SYD
I hit the airport at 9:45PM for an 11PM flight to Australia, maybe what some would consider cutting it a little close. In fact, when I walked up to the check-in counter, they said: “Aaron?”. Wow, this new VAustralia Airline (Virgin Australia) is really on their game! “Yes”, I replied, “how did you know?”. “Well, you are the only one on the plane that has not checked in yet.” Ah hah, good thing I wasn’t checking an luggage. “Can we see your travel Visa, sir?” “Um, I wasn’t aware that you needed a travel visa for Australia.” SHIT! “No problem, sir, we will call the embassy and print one out for you right here.” WHAT?!?!?! I guess travelling biz class has it’s perks. I can’t believe they were able to just print a travel visa for me at the check-in counter 45 minutes before I’m supposed to board. With that near fiasco behind me, I walked through security in 15 minutes and made it to the gate just in the middle of the boarding process. If I had waited another 20 minutes or so to get to the airport, I would have missed this flight. No Worries!
The plane was amazing. A glass of champagne was definitely in order before takeoff, and it seemed like everyone was enjoying this pre-flight ritual.
I feel so excited about the trip. It’s been amazing already. The guy next to me runs a company that focuses on outfitting children in the developing world with glasses so that they don’t become blind later in life, which is what happens to most of them. He does this by running a company that manufactures and sells innovative optical technology and donates about 30 percent of their profits to the humanitarian side. Just amazing. Only on travel like this do you meet people of this sort; makes me feel as though living in HK might open so many other avenues for me.
Some of the cool things are that they actually turn the lights off and have lights of the stars on the ceiling to help you sleep. They have touchscreen monitors with hundreds of movies and tv channels, radio, cd collection, games, it’s insane. I started with an episode of the family guy, which was hysterical. Then I moved onto watching the dark night again while I had my dinner and had two glasses of wine followed by two glasses of bailey’s on the rocks…what the waitress in Dallas called adult milk…yeah. Dinner was excellent. A crab cake to start, then red snapper and an apple tart with vanilla ice cream to finish. I mean, I can’t believe this qualifies as “airline food”. (That “I mean” is to be pronounced like Ben would say it). Next, I changed into the sleep suit that they give you, yeah that’s right, they give you a very comfortable sleep suit as well as a bunch of other amenities. Two lunesta and I was out for the next 8 hours. When I woke up I asked the stewardess how much long till we land, and she said: “an hour and a half, sir”. I could not believe my ears, this was the easiest 14.5 hour flight I had ever taken! Ok, it’s the only 14.5 hour flight I’ve ever taken, but since the seat goes all the way down to a bed, I slept soundly for so long that it seemed like a normal night’s sleep. We arrived in SYD at 10AM plus one day so I felt pretty normal upon arrival in the Land Down Under.
The plane was amazing. A glass of champagne was definitely in order before takeoff, and it seemed like everyone was enjoying this pre-flight ritual.
I feel so excited about the trip. It’s been amazing already. The guy next to me runs a company that focuses on outfitting children in the developing world with glasses so that they don’t become blind later in life, which is what happens to most of them. He does this by running a company that manufactures and sells innovative optical technology and donates about 30 percent of their profits to the humanitarian side. Just amazing. Only on travel like this do you meet people of this sort; makes me feel as though living in HK might open so many other avenues for me.
Some of the cool things are that they actually turn the lights off and have lights of the stars on the ceiling to help you sleep. They have touchscreen monitors with hundreds of movies and tv channels, radio, cd collection, games, it’s insane. I started with an episode of the family guy, which was hysterical. Then I moved onto watching the dark night again while I had my dinner and had two glasses of wine followed by two glasses of bailey’s on the rocks…what the waitress in Dallas called adult milk…yeah. Dinner was excellent. A crab cake to start, then red snapper and an apple tart with vanilla ice cream to finish. I mean, I can’t believe this qualifies as “airline food”. (That “I mean” is to be pronounced like Ben would say it). Next, I changed into the sleep suit that they give you, yeah that’s right, they give you a very comfortable sleep suit as well as a bunch of other amenities. Two lunesta and I was out for the next 8 hours. When I woke up I asked the stewardess how much long till we land, and she said: “an hour and a half, sir”. I could not believe my ears, this was the easiest 14.5 hour flight I had ever taken! Ok, it’s the only 14.5 hour flight I’ve ever taken, but since the seat goes all the way down to a bed, I slept soundly for so long that it seemed like a normal night’s sleep. We arrived in SYD at 10AM plus one day so I felt pretty normal upon arrival in the Land Down Under.
LA Day 3
Tracey and I hit this amazing omelet place in SM called The Omelet Parlor (that’s for you nikki). Of course, neither of us ordered omelets. I had the smoked salmon scramble and a blueberry pancake on the side and she had a healthy egg white scramble with spinach, and some other healthy stuff in it (again, for you nikki).
From there we rolled to the Chinese embassy to pickup my visa and passport and also take a tour of the tar pits, which were right down the street. I can’t believe I had never been there before, given my interest in paleontology, it was amazing. It’s a little disturbing actually to know that there are open tar pits in LA that are bubbling over with methane gas. Just seems a little unstable for a major city to have right in the middle of it. The funny thing is that set the pits up with pre-historic mastadons as if they were drowning in the hot tar. Given this is a large attraction for kids, it seems kind of scary, no? One thing is for sure, Jared would have cried thinking about the death of these majestic creatures of plastic. We also made a quick trip to the gift shop (didn’t feel like paying the $7 pp for the museum tour), where I was attacked by a T-Rex on the loose. I can’t believe I forgot to remain still since the T-Rex’s sight is based on movement! I guess I’m no Alan Grant (how many people will get this besides Ben)?
Back at the Loews I has a little time before my flight, so I decided to do my own yoga session on the beach. Tracey agreed to let me lead her in private instruction, my first endeavor at this. I won’t go into too much detail here because I don’t want to bore everyone, but my goal was just a basic Vinyassa class with equal balance on the upper and lower body. I thought it went pretty well, I ended up doing more balancing poses than I had anticipated, but those are always good too. It lasted probably 45 minutes or so followed by a good 15 minutes of Shiva Sana. I have to say, I really enjoyed it and Tracey seemed to get a lot out of it. I’m definitely going to try to improve my skills and work toward being an instructor when I get back. If I only knew someone in my family that could help with this…
From there we rolled to the Chinese embassy to pickup my visa and passport and also take a tour of the tar pits, which were right down the street. I can’t believe I had never been there before, given my interest in paleontology, it was amazing. It’s a little disturbing actually to know that there are open tar pits in LA that are bubbling over with methane gas. Just seems a little unstable for a major city to have right in the middle of it. The funny thing is that set the pits up with pre-historic mastadons as if they were drowning in the hot tar. Given this is a large attraction for kids, it seems kind of scary, no? One thing is for sure, Jared would have cried thinking about the death of these majestic creatures of plastic. We also made a quick trip to the gift shop (didn’t feel like paying the $7 pp for the museum tour), where I was attacked by a T-Rex on the loose. I can’t believe I forgot to remain still since the T-Rex’s sight is based on movement! I guess I’m no Alan Grant (how many people will get this besides Ben)?
Back at the Loews I has a little time before my flight, so I decided to do my own yoga session on the beach. Tracey agreed to let me lead her in private instruction, my first endeavor at this. I won’t go into too much detail here because I don’t want to bore everyone, but my goal was just a basic Vinyassa class with equal balance on the upper and lower body. I thought it went pretty well, I ended up doing more balancing poses than I had anticipated, but those are always good too. It lasted probably 45 minutes or so followed by a good 15 minutes of Shiva Sana. I have to say, I really enjoyed it and Tracey seemed to get a lot out of it. I’m definitely going to try to improve my skills and work toward being an instructor when I get back. If I only knew someone in my family that could help with this…
LA Day 2
This might be hard to believe, but I had been thinking about eating breakfast at the coffee bean in Brentwood every since I booked my trip to LA. First thing Tuesday morning, I met u with my good friend Tracey and we went there to get my coffee with a shot of espresso and their famous raisin bran muffin. While ordering I decided that since it was 70 degrees out I should switch to iced coffee, but the muffin was a given. It did not disappoint. After the blueberry bran muffin in Dallas, I am really not sure which one is better. I’ll need a few more samples to decide. Tracey was kind enough to drive me to the Chinese embassy where I dropped off my passport to get my travel visa for entry into Beijing. Then it was just some nice sightseeing and strolling through SM and LA and lunch at the hotel, which was surprisingly good.
Dinner at the Lapidus’ with the Robinson. We ordered from Bandera’s (my recommendation) this place has the best rotisserie chicken and banana cream pie. It was also in a Curb episode when he keeps missing the meeting with Diane Keaton and has lunch there with Jeff. Anyway, this was my first meeting with Luke Lapidus, who is now 7 months old. He is so cute, it’s ridiculous. He actually reminds me a lot of Hayden Kaufman. Very well behaved, large for his age, cute as anything and lots of smiles. See the picture included. The funny thing here is that what you can’t see in the picture is Nikki behind the camera. In order to get Luke to smile, she was jumping up and down on the couch yelling into a plastic cup (to simulate James Earl Jones’ voice: “LUKE, I AM YOUR MOTHER!” This actually got me to smile as well, not an easy task when I’m having my picture taken. I was really surprised when I saw that Luke had pretty light skin, I thought for sure the Cuban genes would have expressed themselves a little more strongly. He even has blond hair…hmm, kind of makes you wonder if he is really Dave’s child. You know, I had blond hair when I was little…
It was great catching up with Dave, Nikki and Andrew and meeting Luke was the highlight of the trip so far. Oh, and Nikki informed me that I write my blog from the point of view of a 3rd grader. Thanks Nikki! I was a little concerned it was only the Kindergarten level. I’ve been watching a lot of Kindergarten Cop lately, so I was kind of writing with that audience in mind. Given who my friends are, I thought that was the appropriate level so that everyone could follow along.
Dinner at the Lapidus’ with the Robinson. We ordered from Bandera’s (my recommendation) this place has the best rotisserie chicken and banana cream pie. It was also in a Curb episode when he keeps missing the meeting with Diane Keaton and has lunch there with Jeff. Anyway, this was my first meeting with Luke Lapidus, who is now 7 months old. He is so cute, it’s ridiculous. He actually reminds me a lot of Hayden Kaufman. Very well behaved, large for his age, cute as anything and lots of smiles. See the picture included. The funny thing here is that what you can’t see in the picture is Nikki behind the camera. In order to get Luke to smile, she was jumping up and down on the couch yelling into a plastic cup (to simulate James Earl Jones’ voice: “LUKE, I AM YOUR MOTHER!” This actually got me to smile as well, not an easy task when I’m having my picture taken. I was really surprised when I saw that Luke had pretty light skin, I thought for sure the Cuban genes would have expressed themselves a little more strongly. He even has blond hair…hmm, kind of makes you wonder if he is really Dave’s child. You know, I had blond hair when I was little…
It was great catching up with Dave, Nikki and Andrew and meeting Luke was the highlight of the trip so far. Oh, and Nikki informed me that I write my blog from the point of view of a 3rd grader. Thanks Nikki! I was a little concerned it was only the Kindergarten level. I’ve been watching a lot of Kindergarten Cop lately, so I was kind of writing with that audience in mind. Given who my friends are, I thought that was the appropriate level so that everyone could follow along.
DFW-LAX
Monday
My goal at the beginning of the blog was to post an update every day. I can see now that this is not going to be possible. I underestimated how hard it would be to write when
I was either hungover or in transit or both. Some unfinished business that was brought to my attention that I would like to tidy up from my previous entries:
1. The raunchy waitress from Nick and Sams’ did not end up meeting Ryan and I out at the club, so that was a major disappointment. I can’t believe I failed to mention this in my last entry.
2. AC Slater’s name in real life is Mario Lopez (thanks for that Pete Hajjar).
My Monday morning in Dallas did not consist of much action, I have to say. I went to the UPS store to ship back more clothes to Norwell so that I would travel even lighter that I had planned. I figure I’m going end up picking up some gifts for people so the more room the better. Right now, I’m at one backpack, which also serves as my briefcase (very professional) and one 22” carry on that is zippered down to it’s smallest size. I have the option of unzipping it around its circumference to add a bunch more room, so I do have capacity from a few gifts. That means I’ll have to prioritize who gets gifts and who doesn’t though…offers welcome!
A quick breakfast at Starbucks with a blueberry bran muffin and grande red-eye seems to be the absolute best bfast in the world to me right now. Have any of you ever seen a blueberry bran muffin at Starbuck? I mean, it really is the best muffin I’ve ever had. I used to think the raisin bran muffin at coffee bean on the west coast was the best, but this new one from SB has it beat for sure. I wish I could find them in more places, and it’s really weird that the one in Dallas, of all places, has them.
So, arriving Monday afternoon in LAX! It had been many months since I had last been here, so it felt kind of weird, but strangely like home at the same time. The flight from Dallas was short and pretty uneventful. The most interesting thing I can say was the big fat woman walking down the aisle of my plane as we were boarding wearing a tee shirt that said: “I have multiple personalities and NONE of them like you!” I guess the shirt is funny enough, but what is really ironic is the fact she was wearing a large cross on her necklace which dangled directly over the slogan. Doesn’t really seem like a message that Christ would have been teaching his decibels, but what they hell do I know? My tribe is responsible for his death.
Arriving in LAX, I hoped in a cab and headed straight to the Hotel Loews an Santa Monica beach. The property is gorgeous, with spectiacular views of the beach and the SM pier. It also has a pool that overlooks the beach. Of course, my first order of business was the hit the local equinox for a workout. The gym was not bad, but I was expecting a little more for LA, I have to be honest. 4-floors of equipment is never fun because then you have to keep moving from floor to floor. Anyway, I actually had a great workout (arms and abs for those who are interested). On my way out the door, I noticed they had a 20% off sale at their shop, so I bought a really cool pair of nike workout shorts. The funny thing is that this is the same pair Ryan bought in Dallas, but he paid full price for his…sorry Rye!
After the workout, I was compelled to go for a run along Ocean drive, which is just such an amazing venue for that. I probably did about 2-5-3 miles, my usual, but I think I picked up the pace a little, though I have really no idea how to tell. After a great run, a short walk down SM pier and a quick stroll across the beach, it was back up to the hotel to get ready to meet Ray Marsden (#42) for dinner. He picked me up around 7:30 in his jeep with license plates that read “617RSOX” (see picture). Dinner was at the Library Bar and Ale House. An excellent selection of both local brewed microbreweries from the west as well as Belgian classics. I went with the slightly flowery tasting Belgian, mostly because it has 10.5% alcohol content. Ray went with the microbrew oatmeal stout, not only because it is a great beer, but also because he felt my beer was far two fancy. For the record, they were both excellent, I was just able to get twice as drunk in half as much time…That’s the Michigan education coming through…Ray went to UCONN. Dinner was very good, fish tacos with guac and mango salsa…can you ever go wrong with that? Ray had the fish and chips, which also looked very satisfying, perfect match for a good stout beer.
Moving on from there we hit the Parlor, which has become one of the local hangouts on Wilshire in Brentwood. Since Ray knows the manager, we had from beers which we enjoyed while debating the attractiveness ratings of various female patrons. I am convinced that Ray’s point of view has been warped by too many years of California living. Ok, Parlor was not much of a scene on a Monday night, so then we hit South, a new bar down the street, which has quickly become one of the new hotspots. The best part about this is Ray and a bunch of his friends are part owners, so the dinks were free. Hanging out with Ray and Shandley (sp), Alex and Sam in the couch room where we downed two more vodka sodas and I was feeling pretty, pretty, pretty good. Ray has some great friends there in LA and I’m just a little bit jealous of how much fun they have. The bar itself is really cool. It basically has everything you would want in a bar, large HD Tv’s, very comfortable seats, nice different sections of the bar to congregate in, an outdoor patio with a TV, pool table room (which is easily converted into a Wii Station Room) and, of course, the couch room where the entire room is lined with a super comfortable leather couch with four flat screens hanging overhead. A great night hanging out with a great friend!
My goal at the beginning of the blog was to post an update every day. I can see now that this is not going to be possible. I underestimated how hard it would be to write when
I was either hungover or in transit or both. Some unfinished business that was brought to my attention that I would like to tidy up from my previous entries:
1. The raunchy waitress from Nick and Sams’ did not end up meeting Ryan and I out at the club, so that was a major disappointment. I can’t believe I failed to mention this in my last entry.
2. AC Slater’s name in real life is Mario Lopez (thanks for that Pete Hajjar).
My Monday morning in Dallas did not consist of much action, I have to say. I went to the UPS store to ship back more clothes to Norwell so that I would travel even lighter that I had planned. I figure I’m going end up picking up some gifts for people so the more room the better. Right now, I’m at one backpack, which also serves as my briefcase (very professional) and one 22” carry on that is zippered down to it’s smallest size. I have the option of unzipping it around its circumference to add a bunch more room, so I do have capacity from a few gifts. That means I’ll have to prioritize who gets gifts and who doesn’t though…offers welcome!
A quick breakfast at Starbucks with a blueberry bran muffin and grande red-eye seems to be the absolute best bfast in the world to me right now. Have any of you ever seen a blueberry bran muffin at Starbuck? I mean, it really is the best muffin I’ve ever had. I used to think the raisin bran muffin at coffee bean on the west coast was the best, but this new one from SB has it beat for sure. I wish I could find them in more places, and it’s really weird that the one in Dallas, of all places, has them.
So, arriving Monday afternoon in LAX! It had been many months since I had last been here, so it felt kind of weird, but strangely like home at the same time. The flight from Dallas was short and pretty uneventful. The most interesting thing I can say was the big fat woman walking down the aisle of my plane as we were boarding wearing a tee shirt that said: “I have multiple personalities and NONE of them like you!” I guess the shirt is funny enough, but what is really ironic is the fact she was wearing a large cross on her necklace which dangled directly over the slogan. Doesn’t really seem like a message that Christ would have been teaching his decibels, but what they hell do I know? My tribe is responsible for his death.
Arriving in LAX, I hoped in a cab and headed straight to the Hotel Loews an Santa Monica beach. The property is gorgeous, with spectiacular views of the beach and the SM pier. It also has a pool that overlooks the beach. Of course, my first order of business was the hit the local equinox for a workout. The gym was not bad, but I was expecting a little more for LA, I have to be honest. 4-floors of equipment is never fun because then you have to keep moving from floor to floor. Anyway, I actually had a great workout (arms and abs for those who are interested). On my way out the door, I noticed they had a 20% off sale at their shop, so I bought a really cool pair of nike workout shorts. The funny thing is that this is the same pair Ryan bought in Dallas, but he paid full price for his…sorry Rye!
After the workout, I was compelled to go for a run along Ocean drive, which is just such an amazing venue for that. I probably did about 2-5-3 miles, my usual, but I think I picked up the pace a little, though I have really no idea how to tell. After a great run, a short walk down SM pier and a quick stroll across the beach, it was back up to the hotel to get ready to meet Ray Marsden (#42) for dinner. He picked me up around 7:30 in his jeep with license plates that read “617RSOX” (see picture). Dinner was at the Library Bar and Ale House. An excellent selection of both local brewed microbreweries from the west as well as Belgian classics. I went with the slightly flowery tasting Belgian, mostly because it has 10.5% alcohol content. Ray went with the microbrew oatmeal stout, not only because it is a great beer, but also because he felt my beer was far two fancy. For the record, they were both excellent, I was just able to get twice as drunk in half as much time…That’s the Michigan education coming through…Ray went to UCONN. Dinner was very good, fish tacos with guac and mango salsa…can you ever go wrong with that? Ray had the fish and chips, which also looked very satisfying, perfect match for a good stout beer.
Moving on from there we hit the Parlor, which has become one of the local hangouts on Wilshire in Brentwood. Since Ray knows the manager, we had from beers which we enjoyed while debating the attractiveness ratings of various female patrons. I am convinced that Ray’s point of view has been warped by too many years of California living. Ok, Parlor was not much of a scene on a Monday night, so then we hit South, a new bar down the street, which has quickly become one of the new hotspots. The best part about this is Ray and a bunch of his friends are part owners, so the dinks were free. Hanging out with Ray and Shandley (sp), Alex and Sam in the couch room where we downed two more vodka sodas and I was feeling pretty, pretty, pretty good. Ray has some great friends there in LA and I’m just a little bit jealous of how much fun they have. The bar itself is really cool. It basically has everything you would want in a bar, large HD Tv’s, very comfortable seats, nice different sections of the bar to congregate in, an outdoor patio with a TV, pool table room (which is easily converted into a Wii Station Room) and, of course, the couch room where the entire room is lined with a super comfortable leather couch with four flat screens hanging overhead. A great night hanging out with a great friend!
Monday, March 16, 2009
Dallas Sunday
Lunesta did the trick, as I managed a good 6-7 hours of sleep and was not that hungover the next day. Sunday was a rather low-key day as we hit Einstein Bagels for breakfast (I had the spinach, egg and cheese on challah; Ryan had the bagel with peanut butter, bananas and caramel sauce). Starbucks for my coffee; Grande Pike’s Red Eye (pike’s roast coffe with a shot of espresso added) with two packets of sugar in the raw and whole milk until it’s golden brown. .This drink has rapidly become the only think in my life I have ever been addicted to (except the X-files, Law and Order and House) and, I believe, I have corrupted Dave Kamin to this affect as well. The real problem is when you go from regular coffee as your standard with the occasional red-eye, to the red-eye as your standard with the occasional black eye (two extra shots of espresso). After this, we headed to the airport and I dropped Ryan off for his flight to Chicago. From there it was another trip to what I now believe to be the best gym in America, Equinox Dallas. Had a great run and brief ab workout followed by Hatha Flow Yoga.
CAUTION: the following couple of sentences are for Yogis only. The class was not bad, but I really did not care for the instructor. First, she played pop and r&b music during the class, which is one of my biggest pet peeves. I was not there for a dance or jazzercise class, so I view this music to be totally inappropriate for achieving the goal of focusing the mind, breath, body connection. Second, she did not have us go through a complete Vinyassa when transitioning the same poses from one side of the body to the other. Again, this is not the best method for honing in on your skills of constant transitioning and flow and concentration on the breath. Finally, she remarked at the beginning of the class that we would do 1:10 minutes of yoga and 5 minutes of meditation. My belief is that Yoga is intended to tire as much of the body as possible in order to achieve the highest degree of mental acuity and focus possible. In other words, the whole point of yoga is to bring you to a place where you can relax the mind and focus inward. 5 Minutes of meditation is not enough. I left after an hour. I know that’s probably not in keeping with flexibility of mind as well as body, but the class was just pissing me off too much.
After yoga, it was a nap on the couch and then room service. House salad with balsamic vinaigrette, grilled salmon with roasted broccoli and apple crème brule with a glass of 2% milk. All-in-all, and excellent room service meal. Then, to cap my Sunday night in Dallas, I watched Doubt. Great movie, I highly recommend it. I always love Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep was amazing. The ending was great too. There wasn’t much “doubt” in my mind as to the right decision for Meryl Streep, but it definitely made you think a little about distinguishing between the nature of reality and perception, and whether there is a difference sometimes at all?
CAUTION: the following couple of sentences are for Yogis only. The class was not bad, but I really did not care for the instructor. First, she played pop and r&b music during the class, which is one of my biggest pet peeves. I was not there for a dance or jazzercise class, so I view this music to be totally inappropriate for achieving the goal of focusing the mind, breath, body connection. Second, she did not have us go through a complete Vinyassa when transitioning the same poses from one side of the body to the other. Again, this is not the best method for honing in on your skills of constant transitioning and flow and concentration on the breath. Finally, she remarked at the beginning of the class that we would do 1:10 minutes of yoga and 5 minutes of meditation. My belief is that Yoga is intended to tire as much of the body as possible in order to achieve the highest degree of mental acuity and focus possible. In other words, the whole point of yoga is to bring you to a place where you can relax the mind and focus inward. 5 Minutes of meditation is not enough. I left after an hour. I know that’s probably not in keeping with flexibility of mind as well as body, but the class was just pissing me off too much.
After yoga, it was a nap on the couch and then room service. House salad with balsamic vinaigrette, grilled salmon with roasted broccoli and apple crème brule with a glass of 2% milk. All-in-all, and excellent room service meal. Then, to cap my Sunday night in Dallas, I watched Doubt. Great movie, I highly recommend it. I always love Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep was amazing. The ending was great too. There wasn’t much “doubt” in my mind as to the right decision for Meryl Streep, but it definitely made you think a little about distinguishing between the nature of reality and perception, and whether there is a difference sometimes at all?
Dallas Saturday Night
It didn’t take long for Ryan and I to experience southern hospitality Texas-style. For dinner Saturday night we decided to follow the “when in texas” philosophy and try a nice steakhouse. Even though we had to walk right past the Capitol Grille to reach it, we opted for the local option called Nick and Sam’s, which was recommended by several people. The night started off quietly with a drink at the bar, but then quickly turned more interesting. We had learned earlier in the day that there were three bachelorette parties staying in our hotel and, sure enough, two of them were seated at Nick and Sam’s. The best part about the party sitting near the bar was definitely the gift the bride-to-be’s girlfriends got her to wear around her neck. Let’s just say it was made of rubber and they all took turns taking picture with it and leave it at that. This is a family blog after all. While that was interesting enough, it really didn’t compare with what was up next for us.
Our waitress was a very attractive, classy, well spoken and articulate texas girl who paid attention to every detail of our dinning experience. After ordering appetizers (we had been sitting for about 20 minutes at this point) it was time for another round of drinks. When I ordered my usual grey goose/club soda with a lemon (Ben orders his with :”NO GARNISH”), Alisha (our waitress) remarked: “oh, that’s my favorite drink as well”. The following conversation took place:
Aaron: “Oh, that’s cool. Yeah I drink it because I don’t like the taste of tonic water and it also has less calories”
Alisha: “right, that’s why I drink it as well. The only other drink I have is scotch”
Aaron: “Wow, that’s my second choice as well I drink it all the time. What brand do you prefer?”
Alisha: “Dewars”
Aaron: “Oh” (thinking to myself: this is one high class broad). “So, how do you you’re your scotch?”
Alisha: “Well, it depends on how I’m feeling. Usually, I’ll drink it on the rocks or neat, but if I really want to get fucked up, I’ll just shoot it!”
Aaron: (After a long pause trying to process weather or not our waitress in one of the nicest/most expensive restaurants in Dallas just said “fucked up” when describing her drinking habits.) “Ok then”
Alisha: “Yeah, well maybe I’ll come join you guys at the Hotel ZaZa after I get off work and we can have a few and see where the night takes us.”
Ryan: “We’ll have the shots of Dewars lines up for you.”
At this point Ryan and I just sat back and wondered what the heck just happened. Texas really is a much different place than either of us is used to. Not only did we not ask this girl any questions about herself, in less than a minute, she had told us that she likes to shoot Dewars and get “fucked up” and invited herself to join us at the bar later. If this is what it’s like at the high class restaurants in Dallas, what must it be like at Hooters?!
The best part is that it did not end there. She made several other comments during the course of our meal, which to put it mildly, strained believability. She told Ryan when he was done with his bone-in sirloin, that: “it’s always good to suck on the bone at the end”. She explained that the chocolate soufflé had: “a warm moist center”, and then laughed. Finally she recommended the key lime cheese cake for dessert because of its: “crème filled center”, and laughed again. There were other comments that I am not going to mention here as I’ve already gone too far I think.
Ok, so the food I would rate as a B+. The house salad was a mix of romaine and iceberg lettuce with chunks of tomatoes and a sherry wine vinaigrette. Not bad, but too much dressing for my taste (which I has asked for on the side, but they forgot). Next we sampled the lobster mac n’ cheese as it was touted as one of the best menu items. We order it as an appetizer and it was very good. It probably could use a little more lobster meat though and was overall just a little bit bland. Then, for the main course, I had a filet (medium plus) and Ryan had the bone-in sirloin. Ryan’s had significantly more flavor than mine and was very good, certainly above average. Mine was, again, just a little bland, but not bad. The grilled vegetable were very good; they actually tasted like they were fresh off a wood fired grill. The best item was probably the ranch flavored shoestring onion rings. We both ate these by the fistful. They were a little hard to dip in ketchup because they were so brittle, but the taste was fantastic. Finally, for dessert, was the banana bread pudding with vanilla gelato (which the waitress explained was made with milk instead of cream…thanks for the explanation), fresh strawberries and caramel syrup. I probably could have eaten three of these by myself after my meal with no problem. It was for sure the best part of the meal, and mixed with a bailey’s on the rocks, was the perfect cap to the meal.
Now, with one of the most bizarre dinners in recent memory over, we walked back to the hotel and went to the outdoor bar for a drink. At the ZaZa, they cover their pool and set it up with a DJ at night, when it turns into probably the biggest scene in Dallas for the evening. Ryan immediately spotted AC Slater (I don’t know his name in real life) sitting in the reserved section. We also had seen the guy from the last season of the bachelor in our lobby earlier in the day (I don’t know his name either), so it appears we picked the celerity hangout for our hotel.
The DJ was not bad, but he was no MiFo (inside joke for the norwell gang). A little too much techno and R&B for my taste and not enough 80’s music, but I guess this was a pseudo club and he had to cater to that group. Ryan and I took position sitting on the waterfall where the DJ was propped up so we could have a good vantage point over the dance floor. Two girls were kind of checking us out (probably more Ryan than me) as they were dancing, so I went over there and said: “I’ve been sitting there waiting for you guys to ask me to dance, but you haven’t done it, so it looks like I’ll have to take matters into my own hands”. A little reverse psychology here. It worked and they latched onto us for several hours. I say latched because one of them literally would not leave Ryan’s side and kept falling asleep on him on the couch we were sitting on. The other one was a real interesting piece of work. I initially tried dancing with her and it was going well for a while, but then she started spinning off on her own, kind of outa control and literally covering the entire surface of the dance floor. Then she told me that she was: “a little weird”. My response was simply: “I can see that”. For some reason this did not go over well with her and that pretty much ended my night with whatever her name was. Now, since I’m invested in writing this blog, I decided I needed a picture of AC Slater to post. The best tactic in my mind, was to get the two chicks to let me take their picture with him since I certainly did not want a picture of AC and Me floating around the Internet. Initially, the plan worked great as girl #1 was able to sweet talk her way to sitting next to him on the couch in his “special” section. Everything then immediately fell apart as girl #1 (the weird one), in her drunken stupor, walked into the picture and promptly knocked AC’s beer all over him. Needless to say, they were removed by security and the photo-op was dead. Oh well, I’m sure you all know what he looks like anyway.
Once the dancing girls were done for the night, another girl approached Ryan and started playing with the buttons on his shirt remarking how much she liked them. Unfortunately for me, I only had a tee shirt on with no buttons. Somehow the conversation turned to the fact that she believed her height to be 5’9”, which was clearly not true since she was the same height as me, but wearing 6” heels. When I broke the bad news to her that I was 5’9” and there was no possible way she could be as well, she removed her shoes to see if it was true. Standing a good 4-6 inches below my eye level she still could not believe that she was less than 5’9”. This reminds me of someone else I know from norwell, who I played high school football with, but I’m not going to mention his name here. She called over one of her friends who confirmed that she was not more than 5’7” and probably more like 5’6”. Sorry Ryan, I think I ruined that one for you.
Now, probably my favorite part of the night was meeting the two moms that were out with Ryan’s girl. When Ryan told them he was from Illinois, they immediately spat back: “eew, your from Obama land”. God Blass Texas is all I could think. I told them I was from Massachusetts and they proceeded to vomit on the floor (figuratively). The tables quickly turned when I assured them I was one of the only registered republicans in the commonwealth. Actually, I’m a registered Independent, but I think most of you know where I stand on the issues. Now, one of them was named Lori and really looked like she could be Jewish. When I asked her this question, she seemed to recoil as if I had just accused her of killing the baby Jesus and bluntly informed me that she was a Baptist. Missed the mark on that one I think. “Ok”, I said “well, do you know any nice jewish girls here”. Again, blank stare…time to move on from this line of questioning.
Finally, when they turned the lights on and Ryan and I made our way to the lobby we caught up again with the button girl. We were standing there talking to her when a drunken fool stumbled by and came up to her and said: “Hey, I’d really like to tell you that….um….that…..welll….I…..um….”, not being able to control myself at this hilariousness, I laughed pretty hard in his face. Interestingly, he did not take well to this and shoved me back a few feet. In my head I’m wondering if Ryan and I are actually about to get into a fight in the lobby of the hotel ZaZa at 2AM with a bunch of drunk Texans, but as I regain my focus, I see Ryan moving forward and them moving backwards. A good sign for sure. The dude’s friend pulled him back and pushed him out the front door as I informed everyone in the lobby that he was: “just a drunk Irishman with a faux hawk haircut”. Yes, the perfect cap to a typical night on the town in big D.
Our waitress was a very attractive, classy, well spoken and articulate texas girl who paid attention to every detail of our dinning experience. After ordering appetizers (we had been sitting for about 20 minutes at this point) it was time for another round of drinks. When I ordered my usual grey goose/club soda with a lemon (Ben orders his with :”NO GARNISH”), Alisha (our waitress) remarked: “oh, that’s my favorite drink as well”. The following conversation took place:
Aaron: “Oh, that’s cool. Yeah I drink it because I don’t like the taste of tonic water and it also has less calories”
Alisha: “right, that’s why I drink it as well. The only other drink I have is scotch”
Aaron: “Wow, that’s my second choice as well I drink it all the time. What brand do you prefer?”
Alisha: “Dewars”
Aaron: “Oh” (thinking to myself: this is one high class broad). “So, how do you you’re your scotch?”
Alisha: “Well, it depends on how I’m feeling. Usually, I’ll drink it on the rocks or neat, but if I really want to get fucked up, I’ll just shoot it!”
Aaron: (After a long pause trying to process weather or not our waitress in one of the nicest/most expensive restaurants in Dallas just said “fucked up” when describing her drinking habits.) “Ok then”
Alisha: “Yeah, well maybe I’ll come join you guys at the Hotel ZaZa after I get off work and we can have a few and see where the night takes us.”
Ryan: “We’ll have the shots of Dewars lines up for you.”
At this point Ryan and I just sat back and wondered what the heck just happened. Texas really is a much different place than either of us is used to. Not only did we not ask this girl any questions about herself, in less than a minute, she had told us that she likes to shoot Dewars and get “fucked up” and invited herself to join us at the bar later. If this is what it’s like at the high class restaurants in Dallas, what must it be like at Hooters?!
The best part is that it did not end there. She made several other comments during the course of our meal, which to put it mildly, strained believability. She told Ryan when he was done with his bone-in sirloin, that: “it’s always good to suck on the bone at the end”. She explained that the chocolate soufflé had: “a warm moist center”, and then laughed. Finally she recommended the key lime cheese cake for dessert because of its: “crème filled center”, and laughed again. There were other comments that I am not going to mention here as I’ve already gone too far I think.
Ok, so the food I would rate as a B+. The house salad was a mix of romaine and iceberg lettuce with chunks of tomatoes and a sherry wine vinaigrette. Not bad, but too much dressing for my taste (which I has asked for on the side, but they forgot). Next we sampled the lobster mac n’ cheese as it was touted as one of the best menu items. We order it as an appetizer and it was very good. It probably could use a little more lobster meat though and was overall just a little bit bland. Then, for the main course, I had a filet (medium plus) and Ryan had the bone-in sirloin. Ryan’s had significantly more flavor than mine and was very good, certainly above average. Mine was, again, just a little bland, but not bad. The grilled vegetable were very good; they actually tasted like they were fresh off a wood fired grill. The best item was probably the ranch flavored shoestring onion rings. We both ate these by the fistful. They were a little hard to dip in ketchup because they were so brittle, but the taste was fantastic. Finally, for dessert, was the banana bread pudding with vanilla gelato (which the waitress explained was made with milk instead of cream…thanks for the explanation), fresh strawberries and caramel syrup. I probably could have eaten three of these by myself after my meal with no problem. It was for sure the best part of the meal, and mixed with a bailey’s on the rocks, was the perfect cap to the meal.
Now, with one of the most bizarre dinners in recent memory over, we walked back to the hotel and went to the outdoor bar for a drink. At the ZaZa, they cover their pool and set it up with a DJ at night, when it turns into probably the biggest scene in Dallas for the evening. Ryan immediately spotted AC Slater (I don’t know his name in real life) sitting in the reserved section. We also had seen the guy from the last season of the bachelor in our lobby earlier in the day (I don’t know his name either), so it appears we picked the celerity hangout for our hotel.
The DJ was not bad, but he was no MiFo (inside joke for the norwell gang). A little too much techno and R&B for my taste and not enough 80’s music, but I guess this was a pseudo club and he had to cater to that group. Ryan and I took position sitting on the waterfall where the DJ was propped up so we could have a good vantage point over the dance floor. Two girls were kind of checking us out (probably more Ryan than me) as they were dancing, so I went over there and said: “I’ve been sitting there waiting for you guys to ask me to dance, but you haven’t done it, so it looks like I’ll have to take matters into my own hands”. A little reverse psychology here. It worked and they latched onto us for several hours. I say latched because one of them literally would not leave Ryan’s side and kept falling asleep on him on the couch we were sitting on. The other one was a real interesting piece of work. I initially tried dancing with her and it was going well for a while, but then she started spinning off on her own, kind of outa control and literally covering the entire surface of the dance floor. Then she told me that she was: “a little weird”. My response was simply: “I can see that”. For some reason this did not go over well with her and that pretty much ended my night with whatever her name was. Now, since I’m invested in writing this blog, I decided I needed a picture of AC Slater to post. The best tactic in my mind, was to get the two chicks to let me take their picture with him since I certainly did not want a picture of AC and Me floating around the Internet. Initially, the plan worked great as girl #1 was able to sweet talk her way to sitting next to him on the couch in his “special” section. Everything then immediately fell apart as girl #1 (the weird one), in her drunken stupor, walked into the picture and promptly knocked AC’s beer all over him. Needless to say, they were removed by security and the photo-op was dead. Oh well, I’m sure you all know what he looks like anyway.
Once the dancing girls were done for the night, another girl approached Ryan and started playing with the buttons on his shirt remarking how much she liked them. Unfortunately for me, I only had a tee shirt on with no buttons. Somehow the conversation turned to the fact that she believed her height to be 5’9”, which was clearly not true since she was the same height as me, but wearing 6” heels. When I broke the bad news to her that I was 5’9” and there was no possible way she could be as well, she removed her shoes to see if it was true. Standing a good 4-6 inches below my eye level she still could not believe that she was less than 5’9”. This reminds me of someone else I know from norwell, who I played high school football with, but I’m not going to mention his name here. She called over one of her friends who confirmed that she was not more than 5’7” and probably more like 5’6”. Sorry Ryan, I think I ruined that one for you.
Now, probably my favorite part of the night was meeting the two moms that were out with Ryan’s girl. When Ryan told them he was from Illinois, they immediately spat back: “eew, your from Obama land”. God Blass Texas is all I could think. I told them I was from Massachusetts and they proceeded to vomit on the floor (figuratively). The tables quickly turned when I assured them I was one of the only registered republicans in the commonwealth. Actually, I’m a registered Independent, but I think most of you know where I stand on the issues. Now, one of them was named Lori and really looked like she could be Jewish. When I asked her this question, she seemed to recoil as if I had just accused her of killing the baby Jesus and bluntly informed me that she was a Baptist. Missed the mark on that one I think. “Ok”, I said “well, do you know any nice jewish girls here”. Again, blank stare…time to move on from this line of questioning.
Finally, when they turned the lights on and Ryan and I made our way to the lobby we caught up again with the button girl. We were standing there talking to her when a drunken fool stumbled by and came up to her and said: “Hey, I’d really like to tell you that….um….that…..welll….I…..um….”, not being able to control myself at this hilariousness, I laughed pretty hard in his face. Interestingly, he did not take well to this and shoved me back a few feet. In my head I’m wondering if Ryan and I are actually about to get into a fight in the lobby of the hotel ZaZa at 2AM with a bunch of drunk Texans, but as I regain my focus, I see Ryan moving forward and them moving backwards. A good sign for sure. The dude’s friend pulled him back and pushed him out the front door as I informed everyone in the lobby that he was: “just a drunk Irishman with a faux hawk haircut”. Yes, the perfect cap to a typical night on the town in big D.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Dallas
Well, since I'm on my way around the world I thought it would be a good idea to write about some of my travels online, so I started this blog. I'm going to try to enter something every day of my trip and also get some pictures up here as I go. Today is just day#1 in Dallas. Since this is my second visit here it doesn't have that new exciting feel anymore, but I do like it. I think I could picture myself living here, but I'm trying not to think about that now. I do have to say that they have the best Equinox gym I have ever seen. It's absolutely enormous and brand new. I guess having as much space as they do down here has its advantages. Missed the yoga class this morning, but will hopefully catch one tomorrow. I think we need an Equinox in the suburbs of Boston, Hingham or Newton would probably be good spots.
Tonight should be interesting as they celebrate St. Patty's day today, even though I don't think there is a single irish person in texas...Ryan and I had lunch at this place called Taco Diner, an upscale mexican joint, which was really good. Yesterday was the Village Burger Bar...possibly the best turkey burger I've ever had in my life. One thing I've noticed in Dallas is that every single restaurant serves alcohol. Even the burger joint had a happy hour special. Last night for dinner it was Trece, amazing margaritas made with agave nectar instead of sour mix. The dulce de lece flan was also unreal. Ok, this might turn into a world food blog more than anything else, though when I get to India I might be on a strict diet of protein bars and trail mix.
Tonight should be interesting as they celebrate St. Patty's day today, even though I don't think there is a single irish person in texas...Ryan and I had lunch at this place called Taco Diner, an upscale mexican joint, which was really good. Yesterday was the Village Burger Bar...possibly the best turkey burger I've ever had in my life. One thing I've noticed in Dallas is that every single restaurant serves alcohol. Even the burger joint had a happy hour special. Last night for dinner it was Trece, amazing margaritas made with agave nectar instead of sour mix. The dulce de lece flan was also unreal. Ok, this might turn into a world food blog more than anything else, though when I get to India I might be on a strict diet of protein bars and trail mix.
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