Wanderlust Heaven!

I’m writing this entry a bit late. It’s December 31 and I’ve finally come up for air here in Boston. Felt that I needed to catch you up on everything before 2007 rolls around. So let’s get on with it, starting with my final weekend in Madrid…

Got off the train in Madrid’s Atocha station, and got a ride from Ken’s sister-in-law Pilar and her boyfriend Nacho. Nacho…I love it. I think it’s a nickname – hopefully it is. His full name is probably something like Ignacio. They dropped me off on Calle Atocha, just steps from my beloved Hostal Matute. Walked up the time-worn stairs and up to the front desk, where the familiar fellow there gave me the same room #5 I’d had the previous weekend. Hostal Matute is a real home away from home and I highly recommend it if you’re ever in Madrid.

I first stayed there in the early 90’s, at the behest of my friend Don. And I’ve gone back there numerous times over the years. Two years ago I stayed there before Ken’s wedding in Cordoba, and I saw Senor Gonzalez, the proprietor, who had aged visibly and was using a cane. He seemed to remember me from many years before, and I was happy to have that little link with the past. This time, I wondered if he was still alive and kicking. After checking in and getting my key, I walked down the hall and almost walked right into the senor himself, who looked hale and wasn’t using a cane. He welcomed me back and we chatted for a few minutes. Made me feel very much at home and welcome here…

My mellow mood was shattered a few minutes later when I checked email. Brother-in-law Dave, slated to come get me in Boston when I landed, had sent me a provocative email which provided a weblink. The link was entitled something like ‘British Airways cancels all flights for two days Heathrow in chaos.’ My trip to Boston comprised flying through London…never a great idea, but that was all I could get on my round-the-world cheapo ticket. I clicked through and found that London was completely fogged in and BA was scrambling to react. It was now Thursday…I was flying Saturday afternoon…no news was available for two days hence. That made me a bit tense…but not surprised. Traveling in the winter – especially around Christmas – is something I detest. I don’t have a great track record during these times…something random generally seems to happen. This time I was pretty calm, I just kept up to date on the BA website and did what I could to stay on top of this.

Went out that night with a bunch of Madrid friends, whose brief bios follow:

-Manuel: old friend from Monitor Group in Boston and Asia. Left the firm a few years ago, we’ve stayed in touch since.

-Paloma: old friend, we met at a wedding in the US many years ago. She’s a musician and good fun to converse with.

-Enrique and Marta: a cool couple I met in Burma this year. He’s a lawyer, she’s an investment banker. Both very well-traveled and impressively intrepid.

We all met at Cerveceria Los Gatos, one of a string of excellent little bars along Calle de Jesus and Calle Cervantes in Huertas. These bars have highly drinkable canas (draft beer) and snacks – not typical tapas, but tostes, basically pieces of bread/toast with great toppings like shrimp, cheese, anchovies, etc. I could stand at Los Gatos and drink and feast for hours. We stayed for an hour or so, mostly talking and catching up. Enrique and Marta had just returned from South Africa and were under the gun at work. I was happy they carved out some time to go out with us, especially given the busy Xmas season and the fact that we had only met a few months before, briefly, in Burma.

We soon moved on to my other favorite place around there, Cerveceria Cervantes. Found a table in the back and had a good feast – along with plenty of red wine and beer. Sat there for an hour or so, till about midnight, and traded weird travel stories and upcoming plans. And although the group was one I had just cobbled together, everyone got on wonderfully and there probably wasn’t a single gap in the conversation the entire time.

They had to work the next day, so we finished up and left the place. Manuel and I were exempt from work – he’s in school at the Kennedy School at Harvard and had just finished his exams. Exams…there’s a topic that seems alien to me these days. Anyway, he and I went out to look for further trouble. Found a buddy of his and we sampled 4-5 other bars, all of them quite different and quirky. Madrid has some great old buildings and courtyards and the selection of nightlife venues goes well beyond the typical Irish bar setup. Every place we visited was absolutely packed. I suppose the Xmas season was a key reason – many offices were having their parties that night. But given my many visits to Madrid, I think that it was more the case that Madrilenos are night owls and like going out hard…and I left it was my duty to join them and experience the holiday partying fervor.

I must say that Manuel is a rare bird when it comes to late-night fun. He and I have gone out in Tokyo and other Asian cities, and he truly seems in his element in a bar, surrounded by people, with the music blaring and drinks flowing. And his enthusiasm is definitely infectious – he always seems to have a woman on his arm at some point in the evening. I can admire that, and enjoy hanging out with him. The night was a bit of a blur, but I seem to recall some odd conversations in a variety of languages, fueled by rum and cokes and beer. And at about 5 a.m. I started stumbling ‘home,’ unable to find a taxi and with miles to go before I slept. The streets were packed with people and I made a mental note to spend more time in Madrid – not many cities have that sort of energy. It was pretty cold for Madrid…but at least it helped prepare me for my upcoming return to the Boston winter. Finally reached the hostal around 6 a.m. and promptly collapsed. Manuel was probably still going strong. I was scheduled to have lunch with Paloma that day…that was looking questionable given the events of the evening (and morning).

Got up at noon, having ignored a call (from Ken) and a text (from Paloma). Was happy to see that Paloma was cancelling lunch and instead proposing drinks for that evening. Perfect. Lazed around for an hour, checked the BA website and saw that the fog in London was clearing, but that things were still pretty crazy out that way. Still, my flights were looking OK and I left the hostal feeling decent about my chances of getting to Boston more or less on time.

Was starving…walked around Huertas and Atocha, wolfed down a pork loin bocadillo and some patatas alli-olli, a sure cure for a hangover. Mulled over a visit to the BA office in Madrid, to get more info on my flight…but really didn’t feel like torturing myself on my final full day in Spain/my journey. So I walked over to the Prado Museum, which houses a fine collection of Spanish and other art. I felt that was a proper and civilized way to spend an hour or so in these, my final hours before heading home…

The Prado is large – not as large as the Louvre or the Met, but still potentially overwhelming. So I decided to view only the works of Goya, who’s probably my favorite painter. I’ve seen a few Goya exhibits over the years – including a fantastic one in the Met some years ago, which featured several of Goya’s darker, satirical series of etchings – Los Capricios, for one. The Met exhibit was sponsored by Goya foods – a very nice touch, I thought. I’ve viewed the Goya paintings at the Prado 2-3 times, but it had been some time, and I wanted to take them in again.

To be honest, Goya’s earlier stuff leaves me a bit cold. Pastorals like boys picking fruit from a tree…or entertainers on stilts…nicely rendered, but kind of boring. That said, Goya did do a painting of two cats growling ferociously, about to do battle, which is about as close to real-life as you can get, and presages his later, darker works. Sends a wintertime shiver down the spine. Down, kitties.

I moved on to Goya’s pinturas negras (dark paintings), which are fascinating and grim. Goya’s worldview was shaped at least in part by the wars with Napoleon, which were predictably bloody and deeply traumatic for Spain. The 2nd of May and the 3rd of May are direct portraits of the violence of the time and are well-known. I like those two…but prefer the more allegorical stuff he created. Saturn devouring his son…two boys/men dueling with slingshots…old men eating like ghouls from an H.P. Lovecraft tale…grim religious (witchcraft?) festivals…so awesomely foreboding and brutal.

I wondered where his series Los Capricios and Los Desastres are these days. Should look ‘em up on the web. I just love the satire in some of Goya’s works. One of his pieces from those series is called ‘Asi Su Abuelo’ or ‘So Was Your Grandfather,’ and depicts a human with a donkey’s head perusing a photo book of his ancestors and laughing manically…of course, all of the photos of his relatives show humans with donkey (ass) heads. Fitting commentary on the general idiocy of the human race…

Really enjoyed spending time in the Prado, amongst Goya’s dark visions. Then went out into the bright winter light and walked up to the hostal. Thought about working out…but took a quick nap instead. My back was a bit sore and my workout clothes were soggy and pungent. Didn’t really sleep, but at least let my body and mind wind down for an hour in preparation for one final night of fun in Madrid.

Paloma and I met near the Neptune Fountain and spent a few hours walking around Huertas, ducking into wine bars and other tempting establishments. We’ve known each other since around 1993, when we met at a mutual friend’s wedding. The next time we saw each other, randomly enough, was at a radio station music festival at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., an event so long ago and so surrounded by beer-induced haze that it seems like something out of a Goya painting. I’ve seen Paloma each time I’ve visited Madrid over the years, and I think we’re a good measuring stick for each other – we have ‘longitudinal data’ about each other’s lives. Had a good chat, as always, and thought it was a nice way to spend my last night in Madrid. Given the likely mayhem of my flights the next day, as well as the previous night’s craziness with Manuel, I wanted to take it semi-easy, so we parted ways around midnight and I hit the hay. An hour or so later, the phone rang – it was Manuel, out at the bars and requesting my company. I was sorely tempted…but was too comfortable and lazy to move. Told him to text me if/when he moved to the next bar, but I had already decided to stay put and get some rest. And that was, in retrospect, a good idea.

Got up the next day with some trepidation. Felt that way largely because of the fog in London…but also because my trip was coming to an end and I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. More about that later…

Took a cab to Barajas Airport, didn’t feel like negotiating the rail system or the bus. Got to the airport 3 hours in advance, desperately hoping to avoid holidays lines and to get both my boarding passes in Madrid, thus obviating the need to stand in lines in London, where things continued to be chaotic and where I might be racing for my connection. Checked the BA site before leaving the hostal…things seemed to look OK, but from experience I knew that any deteriorating in the status would occur closer in. Anyway, I was reasonably well-rested, certainly well-fed and lubricated, and ready for mayhem. Dave would be waiting for me in Boston, so I was hoping largely for his welfare that things wouldn’t get too ugly. I didn’t really have firm plans for the next few days in Boston, so I was relatively relaxed. That said, I was cursing myself for having a connection in London and vowed to never allow that again…

Things started smoothly. Line for check-in wasn’t bad…checked in my bag through to Boston, got my first boarding pass, everything seemed too good to believe. Precisely. The check-in clerk then told me that my London-Boston flight was ‘held’ in the computer system…and she couldn’t give me the second boarding pass. She asked me to return in 45 minutes and see if things had changed. I started worrying, of course.

Got a couple newspapers…ate a large bocadillo (I can’t get enough of the Spanish food – could you tell?), and hung out for a few more minutes. Went back to the counter…the clerk was about to take her break, but called me over and told me the status was the same. I worried some more. Soon after that, noticed that my Madrid-London flight was delayed for 50 minutes. Ate another bocadillo (diagnosis: nervous eater), then got on email and sent Dave a note telling him that things were deteriorating, and to keep checking the BA website – which seemed to be up-to-date.

My flight ended up departing Madrid almost two hours late. That left me just over an hour to change terminals in Heathrow, overcoming the many annoyances in between. As we touched down in London, I was amazed at the fog layer still over the city – it was like a blanket of clouds. We landed, then had to wait a few minutes for the bus to arrive and take up to Terminal 4. The clock was ticking and I had to get over to Terminal 1 for my Boston flight. Ugh…

Bus came…I got on it quickly…then, of course, the arthritic elderly woman took 5 minutes to get down from the plane. The ride to Terminal 4 took forever. Got inside, followed signs to Terminal 4, then got stuck in the mother of all security lines. There were probably 300 people in front of me. The first visible manifestation of the fog-driven mayhem still rippling through Heathrow. If I waited in this line, I could kiss my next flight goodbye. No airline staff were around to help…so I went around the line on the right side, spotted a Japanese family close to the front, jumped in front of them, apologized and explained my situation to them in Japanese, and they were more than understanding. Very classy folks. Got through security, then continued following signs to T4. Was unhappy to see that I needed to take another bus over there. Got on the bus…and waited 10 minutes for it to fill up sufficiently. The driver was compelled, he insisted, to wait until the bus was full. The clock was ticking. It was 25-30 minutes before scheduled takeoff. Ugh…

This bus ride was relatively short…only felt like a year. Got off, raced upstairs, saw the monitor and my flight gate listed there, and raced off to the gate. It was, of course, one of the very farthest gates possible. All the while during this process, I had sent off text messages to Dave in Boston, but hadn’t gotten anything back. Later found out that Dave had gotten my texts and had responded, but his responses never reached me. Ugh…

Reached my gate. Chaos all round. Ended up boarding 20 minutes late…then we sat on the tarmac for 90 minutes. Pilot promised (?) we’d make most of it up en route. Sent a final text to Dave, then turned off the mobile and sat back. Quite an exciting final leg of my round-the-world journey…too exciting, probably, but at least good for a story. Didn’t feel like reading – a rare state for me – so checked out the movies and noticed ‘The Queen’ was on offer. Watched that – and loved it. Helen Mirren was superb as QE2 herself, whoever played her husband was excellent, and even the guy playing Blair was pretty good. Not a product that could have been put out by Hollywood…or by Bollywood, for that matter. I rarely find time to watch movies, and get in most of mine on flights. Flight was only 6.5 hours and it was over before I knew it. But I continued to feel odd…I sat motionless, nearly without mental activity for part of the flight. It was a bit like Tom Hanks going home in ‘Cast Away.’ What would going home be like? What was I going home to?

Landed an hour late in Boston. All things considered, that was about the best outcome possible. Got my bag, went out to the arrivals hall, and saw Dave right away. I was home.

Stayed with Dave, my sister, and my nephew Jacob out in Hopkinton that night. Was nice waking up the next morning, going downstairs, and seeing Jacob for the first time in seven months. The last time I had seen him, he was at my Dad and Ellen’s place in Newton, very early on the morning I took off, crying and whining. He seemed more calm now…and he seemed happy to see me. Bon and Dave had told him I was coming back, but who knows what was processed in his brain?

My father called from Las Vegas, and we caught up. We’d see each other in a few days, as he was out west for a few days and I was heading to our vacation house on Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire for a few days. Jews are never quite sure what to do over Christmas and we generally take off for somewhere…Montreal, where my mother’s cousins live, New Hampshire, where we’ve had our second home since I was 11 years old, or other places.

I hadn’t been up to New Hampshire for many years. My mother died up there in 1995, and there are still some hard memories for me there. In Boston as well, for that matter. But my father had put the place on the market, and I wanted to go up there one more time to see how I felt, and if time had had any effect on my feelings of sadness associated with the place. I should also say that I had many, many great memories of my time there…I spent a lot of my life there and made some great friends whom I’m still in touch with. I remember water-skiing around the lake behind our motorboat…barbecuing out on the deck while the sun went down…going out and draining beers with friends at parties around the lake. All of the situations that kids get into, I got into up in New Hampshire. ‘Nuff said.

Got up there in early evening. Bonnie made us some dinner, we opened an old bottle of wine – I think it was a 1988 bottle of Bordeaux – which we decanted. But the wine had spoiled and we switched to another bottle of red. Sat around talking for a few hours…then hit the sack. I was pretty beat from the trip and from jet lag. Slept in my old room for the first time in memory – probably 7-8 years, I’d guess. As I passed out I briefly took stock of my feelings about being back in Sunapee. They were predictably mixed. I had forgotten what a special place this was…at the same time, the ghost of my mother seemed to linger and my moods were changing by the minute. But managed to get a good night’s sleep…

Next morning, decided to practice yoga in the loft to dispel some built-up aches. As I was going through some of the basic asanas (poses), I heard nephew Jacob (almost three years old) laughing and having fun a couple floors down. I couldn’t help but smile…it felt like life itself was being renewed in the house, and that sadness might not be the ultimate emotion there.

This was Christmas Day. As Jews, we decided to celebrate like real pagans…with a large Chinese/Japanese dinner up in Hanover, site of Dartmouth College. Before heading up, I went for a run and ran into my old friend Kathy, who was also out for a run. Hadn’t seen her in way too long – we made plans to catch up the next night. Kathy and her family recently moved back to NH from Denmark. They were mulling a move to Hong Kong, and I had provided some advice, but that fell through.

So we met the following evening, along with Kathy’s husband Chris and our friend Rich. Sat around their massive Xmas tree, had a few beers, and told some old and new stories. These guys had come to visit me in Washington back in 1991, en masse in a van. That was an insane weekend, the details of which propriety bars me from mentioning here. Made me realize how much I’ve missed these friends…

Bonnie and Dave had some friends of theirs, Gary and Stacey and their daughter Mia, up that night, staying at our house. We all went out for dinner at Peter Christian’s, a classic soup-salad-sandwich joint that I’ve loved for many years. It’s slipped a bit, but is still very good. I ordered ‘Peter’s Russian Mistress,’ a smorgasbord sandwich as fattening as it sounds. The waitress asked me ‘what type of bread do you want on your mistress’ and the table broke up in laughter. Indeed.

While waiting for our food I teased Mia and chatted with Stacey. When Stacey found out that I used to live in Hong Kong, she asked me if I had heard about the Kissel murder case there. I certainly had…it involved a woman killing her i-banker husband, who was apparently a real prick, rolling his body up in a huge rug, and sticking it in a storage room. Needless to say, not the perfect crime, and her trial was a big deal in HKG a year or two ago. Drug use, affairs, all that. She was found guilty. Stacey’s family knows the family of the dead fellow…and to make matters worse, that guy’s brother was also murdered, probably as a result of some US-based financial swindles. Nice family…

Went back to Boston the next afternoon. Moved over to Dad and Ellen’s in Newton. Had a good walk with Dad around nearby Crystal Lake, caught up with him about our lives and ‘next steps.’ Went out that night with Dad, Ellen, her daughter Amanda, and Amanda’s friend – went to a small comedy club in now-trendy Davis Square, Somerville. The comedian was a well-known local named Jimmy Tingle, who was hilarious. Left-wing humor, just my style. Bashed the Bush Administration and the general stupidity of the hoi polloi, but with a populist, non-elitist voice that worked pretty well. Had dinner afterward at Gargoyle’s, the first (and still only) upscale place in David Square. Good stuff. After that, even though it was getting late for Dad and Ellen, we walked over the a great local music joint, Johnny D’s, for some drinks and dancing. Hadn’t really partied with this group in a while, and had fun.

The next day I went and saw the movie ‘Borat’ with Dad and Ellen. Probably the funniest thing I’ve seen in years. They had already seen it once…and I will probably go and see it again soon. Highly recommended.

Well, that’s it on the home front. Hopefully I made a seamless transition, as we used to say in the consulting world, between continents and emotions. In any event, stay tuned dear readers…I will continue with my Slog and adventures and hope you stick with it as well. Am investigating other blog hosting sites, and might make a change sometime soon.

FYI, My near-term plans are set: I’ll be in and around Boston through early February, then travel to Asia again to help a friend start up a company. That should take about a month. After that, I plan to spend the balance of ’07 traveling, probably to 2-3 major places so that I can ramp up my writing and get into more of a routine for exercise, sleeping, socializing, etc.

This has been a pretty long entry, but I want to follow through on my promise to provide a few lessons learned (without trying to write the next best-selling self-help tome…). Hopefully these won’t be too obvious or cursory – I have given them a bit of thought. Here goes, in no particular order:

1. A smile gets you very far. But in times of conflict, offering a free cigarette works even better…
2. Don’t be overly ambitious when planning your day. The day is short, I’ve found, and you can’t do more than 2-3 things well before the sun goes down. This year I set a few major goals – exercise, writing, and working on my language skills. I did the first well, the second sporadically, and the third very rarely. Over the course of the day, particularly when traveling, all sorts of other things enter the picture: travel planning, sight-seeing, hanging out with friends, meeting new people, having good meals, sending emails, etc. Some days in Madrid all I did was walk around. And that was enough.
3. Related point – don’t rush. If you’re always in a hurry, you miss the key bits and make crappy calls. When I was up in Leh, hurriedly looking for my guesthouse and carrying my heavy backpack, I walked right by it and by the time I doubled back and found it, I was beat. When I was in Mumbai, I needed a SIM card for my mobile – and got one at a little newsstand that, in retrospect, was a questionable decision given that there are more respectable phone shops. I probably shouldn’t have handed over a photocopy of my passport to a dodgy-looking newsstand operator…
4. Most valuable apparel: tie between my Tevas and a plain white t-shirt from J. Crew. You can wear both (in warm climes) in nearly every setting, and they’re easy to carry and wash.
5. There are smart, resourceful people everywhere – but resources aren’t similarly well-spread. I met a lot of switched-on people wherever I went…some had the benefit of education and access to information, some didn’t, but even those who didn’t had their share of native intelligence and, because of their challenging environments, were especially self-aware and on their toes. Don’t dismiss people from downtrodden lands uneducated and incapable.
6. Flux creates adventure and stories…so don’t over-plan. At the start of my trip I tried to have flights and hotels booked at least a week in advance. By the end I was just walking into hotels and getting a room. You’ve gotta do the homework, and be aware of crunch times and costs, but it ‘costs’ more to worry and plan than it does to take it easy and play it by ear.
7. Dental floss lasts forever. I floss nearly every night and I swear I only went through 2-3 things of floss over the past 7 months.
8. Anywhere Hemingway frequented is now a rip-off. For example, Café Gijon (and Cerveceria Alemana) in Madrid are very nice places, but you can be damn sure they were far better value when they weren’t loudly advertising their Hemingway connection.
9. Please don’t take yourself too seriously. Nothing’s more annoying than having to listen or observe someone in the desperate and pathetic throes of self-importance. We’re all insignificant and should feel immense freedom from this state…
10. We Americans really need to get out there more. I met few Americans in the less obvious places I visited, and often felt like a diplomatic envoy fighting against the wave of anti-American sentiment – not so much from the natives as from other (European) tourists. It’s amazing to see the effect you can have on people just by being ‘normal’ and having a chat with them. Good thing I left my guns and ‘USA #1’ t-shirt back in Boston…

That’s it for now. Will post again within the week, before heading down to the Caribbean, where we’re taking my father on a 65th birthday cruise. Being on a package tour with everything scheduled in advance will take some getting used to. How will Mike do? Only the shadow knows…

Happy New Year, here’s looking forward to another random year of fun, adventures, and random mayhem. Over and out.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 31st, 2006 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.